Why Vyara Stefcheva starts AI marketing with people
Vyara Stefcheva is an independent business and marketing consultant working with international clients on AI adoption in marketing and AI skills training. The conversation explores why effective adoption starts with people and business goals, and how training, recommendations and AI search contribute to new client relationships.
Start with the marketing result and the people who will use AI, not a tool. AI can speed up execution, but it cannot compensate for unclear customer understanding or positioning.
What’s the short story of how your business started, and what makes it genuinely different from the other options your customers have?
I spent years in marketing, helping scale more than 300 brands across 15 countries. When generative AI arrived, every client asked the same question: what do we actually do with it? Most answers they got were either a tool to buy or a theory to admire. My work sits in between. I help businesses decide where AI belongs in their marketing – strategy, content, ads, customer research, visibility in ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews – and then train the people who have to use it every day. A marketer who understands AI, not an AI enthusiast who has read about marketing.
How did you win your first customers, and where does most of your new business come from today?
Through trust built before the first conversation, and that hasn’t changed. People rarely hire an expert they’ve never heard explain something. Today most new work comes from my trainings, my YouTube channel and recommendations from people I’ve worked with. Digital PR and AI search play a growing part too. More and more clients tell me they found me by asking ChatGPT or Gemini. That’s no accident: I’ve spent years building a strong digital presence and I understand how search works, so AI recommends me for the same reason I teach clients to earn it. By the time people contact me, they already know which problem they want solved, so the first call gets to the point quickly.
What’s one decision that changed the direction of your business, and one mistake that taught you the most?
The decision: to start every AI project with people, not tools. Most businesses don’t struggle with AI because the technology is weak. They struggle because nobody connected it to the way their team actually works. Once I made training part of every engagement, the results lasted after I left.
A clever AI workflow that doesn’t move a marketing number is just a demo. Now every project starts with one question: which result are we trying to change?
What has changed in your industry or in what your customers expect over the last couple of years, and how have you adapted?
Marketing changed on three fronts at once. Inside the company, AI now drafts content, ads and research, so the advantage is no longer having the tools but using them with judgement. Outside, customers ask ChatGPT or Gemini instead of searching and get three options, not three hundred. And the rules are catching up: for example, the EU AI Act asks brands to be transparent about AI-generated content. Clients now expect one person who can connect all three – strategy, visibility and responsible use. That’s how I’ve built my work.
If you were advising someone starting out in your industry today, what would you tell them to do first, and what would you tell them to ignore?
Do first: learn the marketing fundamentals – your customer, your positioning, your offer. AI multiplies what you already know, so a weak strategy just gets produced faster. Then test AI on a real problem in your own business, not on a demo.You should ignore the daily flood of “10 new AI tools you must try” and lists of secret prompts. Tools change every month – knowing your customer and where AI fits into how they decide doesn’t.
Thank you to Vyara Stefcheva and the team at Vyara Stefcheva for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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