Using ChatGPT to Boost Your Productivity
How to Use ChatGPT to Boost Your Productivity
Suitable for business professionals, business owners or for just the curious!
Unless you have been living under a rock, you will have heard of ChatGPT. In short, ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) powered chatbot that can help increase productivity in your small business.
ChatGPT burst onto the scene with a bang in late 2022 and has quickly established itself as a major player on the world stage at the forefront of a new technological wave of innovation.
Personally, I am obsessed with ChatGPT and AI. My two career passions have always been IT and Writing. These two worlds have now collided in spectacular fashion and I cannot get enough of it.
I now use ChatGPT (prior to that I was using another AI tool called Jasper) daily. Jasper was a subscription model and I loved using it, but ChatGPT is free (for now) so bye bye Jasper. In fact, I have got to the point with AI that I cannot imagine life without it. With frequent use and practice comes expertise, and while I would not consider myself an expert, I have developed a level of expertise that has increased my productivity in so many ways.
With the help of AI (of course), I am writing a series of articles to help you, as a business professional, business owner, or just as a curious person, discover some of the ways you can use ChatGPT in everyday life to boost your productivity.
Why you must get on board with ChatGPT Now
AI simply cannot be ignored and if you are a business owner or a business professional, you need get on board asap or get left behind. One of the great things about AI, is that it is low-cost or NO cost. This means that there are no excuses for ignoring it.
Those who embrace this technological wave will benefit from increased productivity, increased efficiency and effectiveness which will leave their competitors scratching their heads in the dust cloud you leave behind. Read my article about the dangers of being a technology laggard here.
Getting started with ChatGPT – No Cost!
Currently ChatGPT is FREE. There is also a paid version, however the free version is more than enough for the average user to reap benefits.
Limitations of ChatGPT
Please be aware that AI is not completely reliable. On their own website, they state that the product has the following limitations:
Are there any risks with AI?
Yes. The technology is new and evolving. There is evidence that the writing output is not always accurate. There are also concerns that Google and other search engines will penalise websites (with a lower ranking) that use AI written content. How do you avoid these risks? You must fact check your content. You must rewrite your content to a certain extent to ensure that the tone and message you are conveying is genuine to your brand.
My recommendation: NEVER take 100% AI generated content and use without editing. The content tends to be a little verbose and bloated and often is not that great to read without a tight edit. Your content must be interesting, relevant and informative to your audience or your will lose them.
What are Prompts
Before we get stuck into the ways to use ChatGPT right now, we must cover off what is meant by a Prompt. So who better to ask, than ChatGPT itself, what a prompt is:
10 Areas you can Use ChatGPT in Your Business Right Now
For some of these I have included examples and some I haven’t. If you are curious as to what the output might be, go ahead and try for yourself. What I have done though is added a note for each item that discusses ‘What to Watch for’. ChatGPT at this stage of its evolution is quite a raw product and the output can be unreliable. My comments for each item highlight how ChatGPT can fall short of your expectations and the risks of accepting the output verbatim.
1.?????Up Your Customer Service Game with more FAQs
ChatGPT can generate responses for frequently asked questions (FAQs) or provide support for common customer inquiries, helping small business owners provide timely and accurate customer service.
Sample Prompt:
What to watch for: content will be general in nature and you need to customise the output to be in alignment with your policies, procedures and business services.
2.?????Email Templates
ChatGPT can generate templates for various types of business emails, such as sales enquiries, order confirmations, or customer follow-ups, saving small business owners time and effort in composing professional emails.
Sample Prompt:
领英推荐
Sample output:
What to watch for: The output from ChatGPT for letters and emails tends to be very formal in the layout, introductory text and summary text. This one is not too bad, however I feel that the sentence ‘As you know, we discussed…’ would get a bad reaction. ChatGPT does not do feelings very well and this is a good example. Does anyone remember the scene in Terminator 2 where Arnie asks young John ‘Why do you cry?’ This is about where we are at with AI right now ??
3.?????Blog Post Ideas
ChatGPT can generate creative ideas for blog posts or articles related to a small business owner's industry or niche, helping them consistently produce relevant and engaging content for their website or blog.
Sample Prompt and Output:
What to watch for: This is a good example of a poorly written prompt. The results are relatively interesting magazine article headings, but a little too broad for most businesses. For example, if I was looking for blog post titles for Amerex Renovations, I would rephrase the prompt to let ChatGPT know that I am a home renovation builder, and let it know what type of projects I specialise in e.g. Second Storey Additions, Home Extensions and perhaps even put a profile of my ideal customer. Can you see what else is missing? One word, keywords. If you are writing blog articles for your business website, you will know that the keywords or key phrases related to your niche are important. If you want these included in your blog titles, you need to tell ChatGPT what they are. If you don’t know what they are, you need to engage a professional to help you come up with a target list for SEO purposes.
4.?????Social Media Content
ChatGPT can generate engaging social media posts or captions, helping small business owners maintain an active and consistent presence on social media platforms.
Sample prompt:
What to watch for: with social media content it is critical to get the tone and style of your brand communicated thru the language used. You may need to keep trying different versions of the prompt until you get output that is usable. So far, I have not liked much of the social media output I have been getting from AI but have found it useful for ideas and for re-wording content when I stuck for fresh words.
5.?????Product Descriptions and Social Media captions
ChatGPT can generate compelling and accurate product descriptions, helping small business owners showcase their products or services effectively and attract customers.
Sample Prompt and output:
What to watch for: I loved this output. The prompt was nice and specific so the language suits a young demographic. I would edit it though to take out the aged range and gender.
Taking this a step further, you can then get some social media captions for this product too:
Sample Output:
What to watch for: I love these captions. ChatGPT has really nailed it. All you need to do is choose your favourite output from the list, cut and paste and you are good to go. This prompt is also great as it can be used over and over. Simply change the product name in quotes and the target audience in quotes and rinse and repeat the process.
More uses of ChatGPT
There really is no limit to ChatGPT for ideas and content generation. Other areas that I will be looking into for upcoming analysis and articles include marketing campaign ideas, content creation and editing, meeting agendas, optimising email communications, sales scripts, competitor and swat analysis.
Did ChatGPT write this article?
No. Yes. But. ChatGPT helped. The opinion is all mine. The areas where you can use ChatGPT came from the tool itself. It was a longer list that I edited and manipulated to be more relevant, then cut short because the article was becoming too long. Look out for more articles in coming weeks and months.
In Summary
ChatGPT does not get it right every time, it is not a mind-reader. That said, with very specific prompting you can get closer and closer to your desired output with practice. As they used to say in the early days of my IT career, garbage in, garbage out ??????
For me, ChatGPT is here to stay and I couldn’t be happier with a new toy to play with. Once they start charging for use, I will evaluate the competitors and decide which is best bang for buck, but for now this tool – AS IS - is an indispensable part of my business armoury.
I hope this was useful. Look out for more articles soon, where I provide specific examples and prompts and tips on how to get the most out of ChatGPT to boost your business productivity.