Presence as PREMIUM? Who knew that caring is a good thing?

Remember when "I'll have my assistant get back to you" was a flex?

Now it's more of a warning sign. We've automated ourselves into a corner where getting an actual human on the line feels like winning the lottery, except the prize is merely someone who probably doesn't give a shit about your problem.

We are getting to the point where my robot is going to make arrangements with your robot.

And now AI promises to make this even more efficient, which is a bit like promising to make a root canal more streamlined.

Sure, this is technically impressive, but are we solving the right problem?

Do any of these sound at all familiar?:

• Trying to get a medical appointment - Automated process

• Booking a holiday - Automated process

• Speaking to your bank - Automated process

• Resolving an insurance claim - Automated process

• Even paying for your groceries - Automated process

Speaking to a person to get a problem solved these days is rarer than an honest politician.

…and more importantly, how do these automated processes make you feel?

Cared for? Important? Valued?

And now, AI, the daddy/non-binary parent of all automations, has come along to make the delivery of all the services EVEN MORE automated…

But is AI really a good thing? Or is it going to crush our business and make us redundant?

…the truth is ….kinda both

Business is Easy…

At its core, business is pretty simple; all you have to do is find, win and then keep the people you want as customers/clients/punters.

And that's it.

(yes, I know there are a LOT of moving parts to those ‘simple’ things - but I want you to think big picture about this).

I mean, not to come over all ‘pick me’ and shit, but the most important question you need to be asking yourself, especially if you make a living from your knowledge, IP or human capital, is, how do I get the people I want to work with to choose me over the competition…?

…in FACT, the question is now, how do I get the people I want to work with to choose me over the competition…and AI?

If AI can create ‘good enough’ output and accelerate through production timelines at a blistering pace, what will still motivate people to choose you, and then most importantly, stay?

This is The Answer.

Presence.

Not availability. Not just more messages. But actual, real felt care.

As any of us realise, if we spend any real time with a teenager, there is more to actual presence than just being in the room.

Presence means that you're not just "available", you are (pro)actively holding space for what matters to your client. This involves noticing what's unsaid or exists between the lines, flagging risks before they become problems, and offering thoughtful advice on how to get what they want.

It's about what happens in the in-between.

In the co-created space between us and our client.

If all good business is built on a good relationship, then in general, humans prefer to have a relationship with another actual person. - I mean, using a certain kind of machinery within a personal relationship can be fun, but in interpersonal terms, they are kind of empty calories*.

And it's the same within our business relationships.

On a practical human level, AI can provide a technically correct response to "How do I fix this?"...

But only another human can say (and not sound like a dick), "I see why this feels hard right now" or "Here's what I'm noticing about the pattern we're in." That's the root of empathy, and it creates emotional safety.

No Booty Calls

In every relationship, we like to feel significant, important and noticed. And machines can’t do that.

Presence is the small, unmistakable feeling that another human is paying us attention, that the things at stake are understood, and that both the quality of the work and the relationship are being stewarded effectively.

When adequate becomes free, presence becomes the premium.

Humans can be on the front foot, actively looking to work on behalf of your client, while machines, no matter how sophisticated, can only respond.

Presence moments are the points in a journey where active human attention deliberately changes an outcome.

Rather than these moments being business compassion cosplay theatre. They are about proof.

Proof that you give an actual fuck:

• A difficult conversation that unflinchingly names specific risk before it can bite anyone in the ass.

• A mid‑project open-hearted call where you are clear about likely project trade‑offs while they are still reversible or dealable with.

• A cards on the table closing debrief that extracts lessons learned from the project, so the next time you work together is smarter and more effective from day one.

None of this requires more hours. It requires better placement of your active and meaningful attention and a repeatable way to make it visible.

Do Shit On Purpose.

Beware ‘performative’ presence.

This is about using your glorious and useful ‘in person’ presence to emphasise the vast amount of value you bring, rather than attempting to be ‘always available’ and sloshing your clients with a deluge of pointless updates and other ‘information’.

Remember, you are in the transformation business, not the information business.

All over‑communication does is give the client homework to do in the form of decoding all of the ‘stuff’ you send over and determine whether it is actually signal or merely noise.

Hourly updates, “just circling back” (have a pre-arranged fucking call!!!) emails, and dashboards crammed with metrics the buyer cannot act on are a tax on attention.

Presence that works is selective. It protects your client's attention while proving that you are spending yours in the right places.

Presence is delivered through structure, not through simple accessibility.

A Predictable Structure

Few people, even attention Ho's like me, enjoy asking for attention.

Your process needs to be built around named and timed behaviour with a purpose and a timeline.

Things like:

• A 24‑hour “first reply” with a tight, five-minute ‘launch call’ format that answers the critical, yet almost invisible question, names the unknowns, and proposes the most effective next step.

• A weekly status video that is recorded once and sent to all stakeholders, using the same three-paragraph format every time.

• A decision register that lives as an open page, always up to date, where trade‑offs are recorded in one sentence each. You have a monthly 15-minute call to talk this through.

These are tiny and are, in reality, pretty boring steps. And that, my gorgeous little dumpling, is the point.

You are looking to generate predictability and familiarity…because:

And then Comfort and Trust become loyalty. We LOVE things that feel good.

In a world that feels literally out to get us most of the time, being a source of fulfilled expectations, (mostly) predictability, and guaranteed results is a massively compelling offer.

This is how we become someone's favourite. (Favourite is where the gold is - I have written about this before!)

Start by mapping three presence moments in your core offer: the beginning, the breakpoints, and the end. At the beginning, decide what you are optimising for and what you will or will not do.

Name assumptions. Set a tempo. This does two things: it reduces later panic and it proves you care about outcomes, not just simply optics.

At important points of our process, have a prearranged CALL to frame the choices necessary to kick off the next stage, cover:

• What changed

• What holds

• What matters now.

You are not reporting activity. You are making the obscured and the invisible, well, …visible and, more importantly, tangible.

At the end, debrief with kindness and a bit of a punch in the knickers: what worked, what effort was probably wasted (even if we can never be 100% sure), and what we will do differently next time we work together.

Archive the debrief as a one-page map or diagram.

Extra Credit Dude...

To make presence visible, bake it into your offer. show a road/expectation map on the sales page, not as extras but as the key part of how results are produced.

Show an anonymised debrief. Or even better a 30 second rough as badgers video of your last clients gushing about how fucking fabulous you are work with.

If your competitors are going for more automation (and they fucking are!), then do you reallly want to have a competition about who can remove the most humanity from your business?

What will your potential customer say?…wooohoooo??!! I want the one who puts the least personal effort into making me happy please???

People like feeling special, and we can ALL feel it when someone is present vs. when they're just processing tickets. Presence is the difference between "handled" and "held."

Presence is about delivering care for the buyer and pressure testing your system. That pressure is healthy. It pushes the shit out and raises the floor of quality.

In a market drowning in content, adequacy and speed, presence is the proof of your promise.

Your promise that you care.

Nobody wants to work with a 7

…I mean…do you?…or do you think you deserve a 10?

What does that 10 look like?

Make buyers feel safe enough to choose your realer, bolder option and to be more than happy to pay for it. Not for your good, for theirs, so they can bring their best selves to work and feel like they are doing amazing things.

Presence is not a 'nice guy tax', or a markup involving simple sycophancy.

It is a concrete investment in vibrancy, increased certainty and your clients feeling like they are able to bring the real them to work every day.

Anyone can ship quickly. Almost nobody can transform a project by being there and acting as a lightning rod for the genius of their customers.

Takeaway:

• Put yourself in your customer's shoes. What would you want to happen?

• Remember...we PAY attention. And expect something back from it. Like the genius in this blog post.

• Invest in the relationship, not the results of the transaction.

• Avoid the 'Black Hole of the Adequate'.

Thanks for reading.

This blog post is based on one of the concepts in my new book 'The Humanity Advantage', released in early 2026. Join my mailing list for new stuff, updates, and some experimental thinking that I'm not sure will make it into the book.

*Trying to fix a relationship with machines is self-defeating. Yes, good things can happen, but in the end, you get none of the credit.