How to Find Your Distinctive Edge in 3 Steps (So AI Can’t Copy You)

Everyone in my feed is panicking about AI right now. They’re worried their content sounds like a robot. They’re worried that when anyone can generate a caption in 4 seconds and spin up a whole editorial calendar in 5 minutes—there’s no way left to stand out.

I’ve been studying this for months, and here’s what I keep noticing…
The coaches who are the most scared right now were already struggling to stand out before ChatGPT existed. AI didn’t make them invisible. 

It just walked into the room and turned the lights on, and the problem was already sitting there.

The real issue (and this might sting a little) is that they built their brand on a niche instead of a perspective. 

They know exactly who they help:

• The burned-out corporate woman. 
• The postpartum mom. 
• The fitness pro trying to go virtual.

But they never figured out what only they would say about that person, and how only they would say it. That’s a positioning problem—and it’s been there the whole time.

The coaches who aren’t scared have something AI literally cannot generate. 

• A point of view. 
• A story. 
• A process.

A specific way they show up that’s so theirs the best prompt in the world couldn’t replicate it. 

In Episode 1, Season 2 of the Main Character Energy Podcast I called it a trifecta: your unique story, your ideal client’s pain points, and the process you take them through. That trifecta is your distinctive edge, and I’m going to walk you through how to find yours in just 3 steps.

AI Didn’t Make You Invisible, It Just Exposed What Was Missing

I’ve built my business to over $4 million in sales since 2017. And then in 2023 I got pregnant with my twin boys and had them in 2024. That’s when every plan I had for my business went straight out the window.

I had a program called Unique Coaching Method. The entire point was helping people figure out what was different about them and pull it out. And somewhere between 2021 and 2023, I drifted from my own message. 

I became a generic business coach. The jack of all trades, master of none, “whatever you need, I can do it” version of me. I’d look at my own content and feel a little disgusted, because it was the opposite of everything I used to stand for. 

I almost quit. Thankfully, that phase only lasted about 2 weeks when I was knee-deep in postpartum, but it was real.

When I came back, I rebuilt from the foundation. 

❌Not more offers. ❌Not higher prices. 👉The edge work came first. 

And the new offer I built off of it scaled to over $200,000 in its first year and is on track to double that. I now run consistent $40 to $50K months working 25 hours a week as a mom of two-year-old twins, and my next goal is $100K cash months.

Here’s why I’m telling you this:

AI is incredible for amplifying a message. It can take a clear point of view and help you scale it everywhere. But it can ONLY amplify what’s already there. If the edge is missing, AI just makes you blend in faster. So we have to start with you—not the prompt box. 

Let’s build your trifecta.

Step 1: Start With the Story Only You Can Tell

Your edge starts with your origin story and the specific way you coach, because both come from your actual lived experience. That’s the part no prompt can fake.

When I ask a client “what’s your approach?” most of them freeze. Not because they don’t have one. Because they’ve never been asked to name it. So let me give you 4 real ones, from 4 business coaches I know well, who all help people make more money and sign more clients. 

Same goal, completely different feel.

→ One takes a spiritual approach. She opens calls with meditations and tarot pulls and channels for her clients.
→ One is purely strategic and will override her own gut if the numbers say otherwise.
→ One is mindset-first and asks “what are you actually thinking right now?” before touching strategy.
→ And one is all embodiment, always asking “who are you being?” 

Sit the same client in front of each of those women and they will proceed based on their approach—even with identical niches.

My approach leans mindset and strategic, and I know exactly why. I grew up as a performer. I literally recorded this season of the Main Character Energy Podcast while in rehearsals for a musical where I have to cry on stage on cue, which means tapping into real emotion every single night. That’s where the mindset lens comes from. And I have a very type-A mother who raised me on good grades and data, which is where the strategy comes from. 

You cannot prompt your way to that. It’s mine.

So ask yourself:
When a client comes to you stressed, what’s the first thing you naturally do? What do you keep circling back to in sessions? And the big one, what do clients say surprised them about working with you? Go ask them. 

The answer is your approach hiding in plain sight.

---

Your story is the part of your edge AI will never be able to touch! It’s also the hardest to pull out of your own head. The Business Story Blueprint walks you through finding the exact story that makes your ideal client stop and feel seen.

---

Step 2: Get Specific About the Moment Your Client Is Living In

You’ve done the ideal client avatar exercise a thousand times. You’ve got her name, her age, her job, probably a whole personality. And yet… you’re still not writing in a way that makes her stop scrolling and think “they’re talking about me.”

What’s missing? The specific moment. 

Not “my client is a busy mom in her 30s.” Try this instead: She’s standing in her kitchen at 7pm. Her kids are finally in bed. Her laptop’s open, she’s staring at a blank caption, and she’s wondering if she even sounds like herself anymore. Her brain is fried. She can’t make one more decision. That’s a moment. That’s a Tuesday she’s actually living.

Then go one layer deeper, into the internal. 

Most coaches market only to the external problem. “I can’t sign consistent clients.” Okay, but what’s she thinking when she says that? “I’m starting to wonder if I’m just not cut out for this.” 

Weight loss is the same…
Externally it’s “I want to lose 20 pounds.” Internally it’s “I haven’t let my husband touch me in months because I feel uncomfortable in my own skin.” 

The internal is what drives the purchase. Twenty pounds is a nice-to-have. A marriage that feels close again is worth investing in.

So every time you write down an external problem your client has, ask what the internal thought underneath it is. When you can describe her day better than she can, she stops scrolling.

Step 3: Build the Framework That Makes It Buyable

This is the piece that creates the biggest breakthroughs for my clients, and it’s the one most people want to skip.

Your framework is the set of steps you take a client through to get a transformation, with a named outcome at every phase. You’re going to learn this, then do this, then feel this way by the end of 3 weeks—and that preps you for the next phase. 

Those mini-transformations matter, because the full result feels far off, but “I could get to phase one in 3 weeks” feels doable. That’s huge for anyone who’s invested before and didn’t show up. A lot of people say they can’t afford something when what they really mean is they don’t trust themselves to follow through again.

The old line “people don’t care how you get them there, they just care that you get them there” is dead. People absolutely care now, because they’ve paid for a process that didn’t work and they want to know yours is different before they buy.

I had a client with a failed launch. Zero signups. 

She nailed down a simple two-part process, got specific, started using the term “food noise,” and went on to enroll 10 people before she even opened the cart. She’s now synonymous with quieting the food noise. 

Same coach, same skills. She just got clear on her process and named it.

What It Looks Like When Your Distinctive Edge Clicks [Case Studies]

My client Stacy started the year with about 600 followers. She got specific on her edge, her story, her ideal client, her process, all of it, and grew to over 19,000 followers in a few months. More importantly, she filled a program straight off her waitlist. 

Her content is now so clearly written for assistant principals that you don’t need her name on it to know it’s hers.

That’s the real test, and it’s one of the 3 audit questions I give people: if your name and face fell off your last ten posts, would anyone who follows you still know it was yours? When the trifecta is locked in, the answer is an easy yes.

Another client went from a launch with zero signups → to adding 700 email subscribers, growing from 5,000 → to 10,000 followers in a weekend, and enrolling 22 people in her next group with five going VIP and six signing for one-on-one. 

Different niches. Different stories. Same reason it worked…
Their story, their moments, and their process all point to one clear thing.

Ready to Find the Story Behind Your Edge?

If you read all of this and thought “okay, I see the gaps, but how do I actually pull my story out of my own head,” start there. Your story is the foundation of the whole trifecta, and it’s the hardest part to see clearly from the inside.

The Business Story Blueprint walks you through finding the specific story that makes your ideal client feel like you’re reading their mind. It’s the exact starting point I’d give you if we were sitting down together in-person.

You don’t need more content or another funnel. You need an edge that’s so clearly yours that no prompt, and no other coach in your space, could ever recreate it. Start with the story. The rest builds from there.