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Welcome to Amplify Your Authority, the podcast where innovative marketing meets heart-centered entrepreneurship. Join Marissa Shadrick, an award-winning international speaker, Ray Edwards certified copywriter, and personal brand expert. You'll gain insights into the external strategies for business growth and how to navigate the internal journey of entrepreneurship. Now get ready to amplify your authority in a competitive digital world. And now is your host, Marissa Shadrick.

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Hello, hello, and welcome to the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I am your host, Marissa Shadrick, online marketing consultant and certified copywriter. And I'm so glad you're listening. It really means a lot to me to have you listen to the episodes, and I hope you get a lot out of it. If you do, I would love a five-star review. That would be so helpful for me to get the word out, let them know that I create this content every week to give you some marketing tips and lately to give you some tips on AI, which is going to be our topic of conversation today. I'm going to share a little bit about AI prompts. Now, for some of you that are very new to AI, you're going to want to listen to this. If you feel like things are moving faster than you can keep up and you don't even know where to begin, then this is for you. If you're already using AI and you're pretty comfortable with it and you're producing some great output, then maybe not so much. I'll just be honest with you. Save you 20 minutes and you can go listen to another podcast. But in any event, I'm here to help those people that are in the beginning stages of trying to learn AI. Now, one of the things I will say, regardless of what tool you use, I happen to use ChatGPT. That's what I started with back in 2022 when it was terrible. It was terrible. I thought, how on earth is this ever going to help us? Because the output was so bad. But guess what? The AI is always learning. It's on constant learning mode. And it is self-programming itself based on the information we give it. And now, two years later, we're seeing that it can actually help us with some of the production that we need to do because most of us create a lot of content. Most of us are solopreneurs. And since we are the team, we love to be able to shave off some of the time it takes to create content and reclaim some of our time, right? I'm all about reclaiming our time and simplifying things so we can get to the good stuff, so we can get to the high-touch stuff, so we can serve those people that we want to serve. So whether you're using ChatGPT or you're using some other tool, these prompts could help you. Now, I will say Chat GPT has come a long way. Like I've said before, I did do a previous recording, I think two episodes ago about AI. So I'm not going to repeat any of that, but it has come a long way. It is much better than it was two years ago. Um, the race is on. A lot of these AI tools, some of them are going to be able to stand the test of time and get better. Others, I think, will drop off and won't be able to compete. Uh, the race is definitely on. But what do we mean when we're talking about prompts? Do we need to be a prompt engineer? The answer is no. Do we need to know a lot about tech? The answer is no. Do we need to know how to have a conversation? The answer is yes. And the good news is that most of you know how to have a conversation. And so that's all you really need to do is slow down and act as if you're talking to someone that's either very, very young or very, very new to the industry that you're in. And take it step by step and not assume it knows what you're trying to teach it. So you're breaking down everything, you're explaining why, so that they can learn and be able to implement. Just know that you need to have better conversations with them, aka prompts, and then your output is going to be much better. Now I happen to be a little bit partial to Chat GPT. I use the paid version. I love that it has a section there to explore GPTs. I love that you can create custom GPTs. I have about six of them now. I'm incorporating AI in a lot of the products and in the coaching that I do because I found that my clients have a hard time executing because there's so many things that we need to implement, right? The reality of execution and things pile up. And sometimes, although they may be great coaches and they may be great in their specific industry, there's a lot of things that we need to know when we're an entrepreneur, and not everybody has those skill sets or they have them, but they need a little help to get it polished. So we need to have like an email service provider and we need to use tools that integrate well so we can schedule things on social media and we use Zoom and we use some checkout pages and we have to create landing pages and integrate everything, and it could be overwhelming. So if we can save some time with the primary things that is really going to set us apart, that is going to show our credibility, that's going to help us serve an audience that's not yet part of our ecosystem by creating content, right? Whether you're producing a podcast, whether you're writing an article, whether you're creating social snippets, or even if you're creating talks for summits or in-person events or YouTube videos, AI can help you. And so this episode is to help you have better conversations with something that feels maybe a little foreign to some of us with AI. And just remember that AI, with everything that you give it, it is self-programming itself. It is evolving, it is learning, and it is improving based on what you provide. So what you provide is very, very important. And that brings us to the six tips I have for you today. So the prompt is just a conversation that you have with an AI tool. Now, the first thing to consider and to begin to start this conversation with AI is that you need to consider its expert role. So what is the profession that you want this AI tool to simulate? It's going to wear a hat. What is that? Is it a CFO? Is it an SEO expert? Is it a Facebook ads manager? Is it a marketing expert? What is the role of this tool? So you need to give it a very clear role. And if you can even give it a description of what that role entails, it's going to help them assume that role. And it will put on that hat and say, okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. I know exactly what part I'm going to play in this. And then that brings us to number two. You need to give it context because it doesn't know yet the story. It doesn't have the background. And so it needs that first to be able to understand the type of information that you want it to create. So you give it context. You give it information as far as who you are, what your business is, the type of products or services that you provide, the audience that you help, the audience's goal, maybe some of the audience's pain points. All of these things are helpful to have. And you could create a separate document that has a document called audience, and you have everything about your audience that you know of so far, what their pain points are, what they're really looking for, what their desires are, all of those things that you've already researched and you've discovered about your audience. And then you can just copy and paste it. And then, of course, you probably have your bio, you have about your business, you probably have an origin story. You can have that in another document and copy and paste it into an AI tool. That gives it context. Now it knows its role, right? Who they are in your business. Then it knows about the business and about you, then it knows about your audience. Now that brings us to number three. Number three is usually where people like to start with AI, which is why they get terrible output. But number three is give it a task. And most people start with that. They start give me a task, and they haven't said yet what role AI is playing, and it hasn't given it any kind of background, and so it produces junk. But when you give it its role, when you give it some context, and then you go to step three and you give it the task or the assignment, then it has a little bit more clarity because you're defining what the task is, right? You're letting it know what AI needs to create. And so it could be either a sales page, for example, it could be a Facebook ad that you're trying to create, or it could be a social media post that you're trying to create, or maybe it's an article you're trying to create. Let it know what that task is. And then number four is the format and the output, how you want it structured. Now, AI has no way of knowing what you've written in the past. AI has no way of knowing what you consider to be an A plus and what you consider to be a C minus. So if you have some samples of your articles, samples of past Facebook ads, samples of maybe social posts that you've created that has a certain rhythm, a certain structure, then you can copy and paste that and give it to AI. So it has some samples and it will analyze that and it will try to simulate that. It will try to copy that same format and use that same format. So for the format and the output, you give it some guidelines and you say, This is how I want it to look. Do you want emojis? Do you want bullets? You know, how is it that you normally write? Give it some samples so it understands, okay, what do I need to include in this so I get an A plus? And that way it will produce the best it can based on the information you've given it. Now, number five is all about constraints. Just like you told it what to do and what you expect to see to get an A plus, you want to tell it what not to do so that they can get an A plus and not get a D or an F. Tell it what not to include, like jargon. Or if you see any of those repeated words or phrases that AI is known for of just all the time producing the same thing, like it'll start a paragraph and it says, in the world of digital marketing or in the world of social media, it starts with in the world, in the world. At first it was kind of cute, but then after a while, I got tired of it. So you need to tell it what not to include. Or if it says unpack a lot, they say, don't include these words, don't include this industry jargon. You know, we're looking for just conversational text. And so you tell it what not to include, just like you told it what to include. And so now it knows and it understands that you don't want these certain things in it. And it won't, well, I won't say it won't, but it will minimize how much it produces things that you don't want. Because sometimes it'll still do it, and then you have to remind it, you know, I didn't want these words in there, and you still produce this with these words in it. But at least it gives you a good starting point by giving it the constraints, what AI should avoid. And number six is clarifying questions. Now, this is really good to be able to tell AI that it's okay that we're gonna take this step by step. I am going to review it as the author, I'm going to edit it, I'm going to improve it, I'm going to give it back to you as an example of what I consider an A plus, and then we'll continue on the next section. But I want you to tell me if I've overlooked something. And before we move on to each section, I want you to ask me for information that I've omitted, something that I forgot to give you. For example, if you're creating a sales page, did I forget to give you the benefits? Right? I want AI to be able to ask me, okay, we're going to work on the benefits section, but what are the benefits? Have it ask you, what are the benefits to this product or this service you're providing? So now you're having this dialogue with it and you're working. But if you do one section at a time and you're reviewing as you go and it sees how you improved it, it's learning and the next section will be better. And then the next section will be better rather than just say, create it all for me, right? That's when we get in trouble because it's just creating stuff and AI has a way, the term is hallucinate, where it will make up stuff. It'll just make it up because it's trying to produce content for you. It's trying to do what you asked it to do, and it will create based on pulling it off the internet or making it up if it doesn't know what else to do. And so that's why we have to verify all the output. But if you're giving it information, it's going to be your information, it's going to be your proprietary process. And so it's going to be close to what you would write, but you're asking it to help you with this. Or maybe it'll provide an outline for you, or maybe it will analyze what you've written and give you a critique of a sort. Or maybe it will analyze what you've written and tell you that certain things have been omitted. So this is really, really helpful to kind of streamline your workflow. And once you get in the habit of doing this, then you're able to really start shaving off some of the time it takes to do things. Because sometimes we get stuck, right? If we're going to have a webinar, I just finished creating an automated webinar, and there's a lot to it. Not only the opt-in page, but the actual production of the video, the post-production of the video, the handbook, the email sequences, all of that. It takes time and it could bottleneck. And then you kind of get discouraged because it takes so long to get it done. But if you use AI to help you, then you move right along, you start building momentum, those endorphins kick in, and you get excited because you begin to see the finish line. But when you're bogged down, you think I gotta write three more emails and I haven't finished this piece yet, then people get discouraged. But this should help you stay in momentum, execute, and get things done faster. But you still need to supervise what AI produces, you still need to edit, but it's gonna really save you a lot of time. So I plan to incorporate a lot of AI shortcuts and custom GPTs for my clients. Now I have basically just three products and I do one-on-one coaching, but in all my products, I am going to have an element of AI to help my clients execute because they get stuck trying to take care of all the things because they are a company of one. They are the team. And it's hard. I know because I am one myself. I have a bookkeeper, I have a webmaster, but that's pretty much it. When it comes to everything else, I do it myself. So I try to streamline and I create a lot of templates and I create a lot of different types of SOP for myself to keep things moving right along so it doesn't get bottlenecked. And I'm very structured and organized with a planner. That's a lot. I can't expect my clients to do all that because some people just wire differently and sometimes they're not sure what to prioritize anyway. So if they can get some of the income-producing things done quickly and use AI to help them, they can work on some other things on the back end while those things are creating leads and revenue for them. So I hope this helps. It's it's the age that we live in now. We need to figure out how to incorporate AI ethically and coexist with AI, and we can do that. It has come a long way, it's not going away. We're gonna see some crazy Twilight Zone stuff in the next few years. Um, it's already getting to a point where I love technology, but I get surprised, and my eyebrow raises when I see some stuff, and I'm going, oh wow, this is like Twilight Zone. This is amazing. And the things that it can do, it's unbelievable. So as you follow me and as you tune into the podcast, I will release some podcasts with updates and things that I've discovered. Definitely my clients will be exposed more to AI, just simply if they want to, you know, shortcut some things. But if not, that's fine too, because I understand everybody has different feelings about AI, and I respect that. It's totally up to you if you want to use it. If you do want to use it ethically, that's the path that I'm taking. And I'm happy to bring people along and help them with their process as well. So I hope that was helpful for you. And I can't wait to have another podcast episode and share some tips. If you have some thoughts of what you'd like me to talk about and share, feel free to email me at Marissa at marishashatter.com. And I am happy to consider that as a podcast episode. And I will definitely credit you and give you a shout out for the idea. And I think it'll be a win-win for everyone. So until next time, take care, and I'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.