Eighteen months ago, I was paying $2,400 a month to a content agency.
They handled LinkedIn, wrote two emails a month, repurposed a few clips. Standard operator marketing retainer.
The result? Content went out. Sometimes it was pretty good. Most of the time it was... fine.
Fine. $28,800 a year for fine.
I cancelled in January.
Here's what I replaced it with.
THE STACK
ChatGPT Plus — $20/month
Descript — $24/month
Buffer — Free
Total: $47/month
That's it. No agency. No account manager. No 2-week turnaround on a LinkedIn post.
THE WORKFLOW (40 minutes, once a week)
Step 1 — Record or pull a transcript.
Take any long-form content you already made — a podcast episode, a call recording, a Loom, a rough voice note. Drop it into Descript. It auto-transcribes in minutes.
Step 2 — Run the extraction prompt.
Copy the full transcript. Open ChatGPT. Paste this prompt:
"You are a content strategist for [your brand]. Here is a long-form piece of content: [paste content]. Extract: 5 LinkedIn posts (each 150-250 words, hook + insight + CTA), 10 short tweets under 200 characters, 3 email newsletter hooks (one sentence each), and 2 short-form video scripts under 60 seconds. Write in first person. Voice: direct, operator-focused, no fluff."
Step 3 — Refine the LinkedIn posts.
ChatGPT gives you 5 drafts. You'll keep 2-3. Takes about 10 minutes to edit them into your voice. If it sounds like a press release, rewrite the hook. That's usually the only fix needed.
Step 4 — Schedule in Buffer.
Drop your finalized posts into Buffer. Queue them for the week. Done. Buffer's free tier handles 10 scheduled posts — more than enough for one operator.
Step 5 — Save the newsletter hooks.
Those 3 newsletter hooks ChatGPT extracted? Those go directly into your next issue. Sometimes I use them as openers. Sometimes they become the whole intro. Either way, the work is already done.
THE REAL ROI
Time saved: about 3 hours a week. That's time I used to spend on briefing calls, revision rounds, and back-and-forth emails explaining what my voice actually sounds like.
Money saved: $2,353 a month. Every month. Without cutting output.
The content is better, too. Not because AI is magic — but because I'm the one controlling the input. The agency never really knew what I was building. They knew the surface. This system pulls from what I actually say, in context, with real substance.
If you're paying someone to translate your thinking into content, and the result is 'fine' — this is worth 40 minutes of your week.
Next issue: I'll break down the exact AI hiring screen I use before every contractor call — the one that's saved me from three expensive mistakes in the last six months.
If this was useful, forward it to one operator you know who's paying too much for content that's 'fine.'
— David
P.S. If you want the full system — tools, prompts, and workflow templates — I put it all in the Nova AI Operator Playbook. It's $47 and it's the only thing I'd have paid for 18 months ago. Grab it here: https://novamedia42.gumroad.com/l/bqbzq