AI has taken the world by storm in the past year or so. It can feel like an enigma if you haven’t used it much before. Today, I'm diving into some ideas of how to use AI, specifically ChatGPT, as an asset in your service-based business.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let's address the elephant in the room. I have found that people end up in a few different camps when it comes to AI. Some of us are scared, thinking it might replace us; others are dismissive, believing it won't affect us, while some have jumped headlong into the AI abyss.
I believe there's a middle ground, a sweet spot where we can use AI to our advantage without losing the human touch that makes us unique.
ChatGPT is a tool. It is not a human. There is so much you bring to the table with your experience and your brain, that AI can’t match.
It’s not the first time technology has changed our lives. If you think back to times when there was a major change in technology, the businesses that didn’t adapt are the ones who go by the wayside.
Blockbuster, for example, steered clear of Netflix’s new model of renting movies, and it ended up going out of business.
AI can't replace us. If we learn to use it, it can give us a competitive edge.
At the same time, we also need to be thoughtful as we adjust to this new technology and understand its limitations.
Making AI Work for Your Service Business
So how can ChatGPT help you in your service-based business? Here are a few ways you can use it:
1. Prioritize and Schedule Out Your To-Do List on ChatGPT
Feeling overwhelmed with tasks? Let AI help you organize your to-do list. Put in a prompt that asks you to schedule out your list over a certain time frame. It'll create a structured schedule, estimating the time each task will take. For me, I’ve found it can help me know where to start and take the decision fatigue out of approaching my task list.
2. Research Content Ideas
Say you know the topic for your next blog post, email, or social media content, but want to make sure you are covering all the possible angles. AI can provide fresh ideas and add depth to your topics. Even if I have a good list of things I want to cover, I often find ChatGPT sparks a couple extra ideas.
3. Editing Assistance
If you're a solopreneur with no editor on hand, AI can be a great help. It'll review your content, correct typos, improve clarity, and even enhance brevity. Sometimes I will just drop a prompt that says, “Make this better,” and copy in some content I have written. Just remember to review and refine its suggestions to align with your unique voice.
You can also use it to format text. Say you need to add hard returns to a block of text or remove something. It’s a quick way to reformat without going line by line yourself.
4. Crafting Client Emails
Say you are replying to a client about a proposal or a something you are working on. Chat GPT can write emails for you that allow you to maintain professionalism while explaining complex topics to your clients.
You can also use it if you are creating canned emails in your client process for project workflows.
5. Learning Something New or get help with a tech issue
Struggling with a technical aspect of your business? Chat GPT can provide step-by-step instructions to help you out. You can ask follow up questions for clarification.
I once used this to clean up some website code that wasn’t behaving how I wanted it to. I’ve also asked instructions on doing particular tasks within apps I’m not as familiar with.
6. Content Planning
ChatGPT can help you create a content schedule related to your niche, saving you time and making your content planning more effective. You can ask it for content ideas related to your topic and then have it map out those ideas in a schedule.
7. Transcribing Video to Text
If you create video content, AI can transcribe it into written form, making it easy to repurpose and share your insights with your audience.
I use another AI tool called Read.ai to record the lives I do in my Facebook group. After I’m done, I download the transcript and copy it into Chat GPT. I will ask it to clean it up and turn it into a blog post or email, and then edit the result into something that has my tone and style.
Just to get a little meta here: that’s exactly what I have done with this blog post.
8. Writing Content
While this is a widely used AI feature, it comes with a few caveats. If you just put in a generic prompt, you are going to get a silted, generic answer. The key to a good response is prompts that are detailed and specific.
You can tell it what your brand voice is or the style you want to write it. Also make sure you include who you are writing to.
Regardless of what it comes up with, you’ll need to do some editing to make it sound just right and ensure it aligns with your brand.
I’ve struggled with this a bit as I’ve experimented with it. ChatGPT has a style and voice that is sometimes hard to edit out. I often feel like it’s more work to edit the content it comes up with than it would be to write my own content.
It is pretty easy to identify those who are using it for social media content creation. I can tell right away when someone has used it. And it does reflect on their credibility a bit. That’s why it is so important to edit the content it creates before publishing it.
9. Language Translation
If you're targeting audiences in different languages, AI can assist with translation. This could be a great tool for those of you who aren’t native English speakers but offer services in the US or other English speaking countries. It’s also an option if you want to expand your reach to other countries who speak a different language.
10. Keyword and hashtag Research
ChatGPT can help you research keywords and optimize your content for search engines. If you put one keyword in, it will give you a list of related ideas you can then research further using search engine optimization tools like SEMrush, Ubersuggest or Moz.
It will also return lists of hashtags related to a specific topic or niche. You can even tell it to only give results with a certain limited number of uses.
11. Market Research
Wondering what challenges your target market faces? AI can provide insights into common struggles, helping you tailor your services to your clients' needs.
AI is a game-changer, but it's important to remember that it's a tool. Use it thoughtfully, ensuring your unique voice and brand identity shine through. And, of course, always be open to experimentation and learning.
Feel free to share your thoughts on AI or your experiences with it in the comments.