Hi, Friend.
Can we talk about all the unexpected places and contexts the skill of ASKING AMAZING QUESTIONS can come in handy?
Want to be a more effective coach?
Ask better questions.
Want to communicate with your teenagers better?
Ask better questions.
Need to negotiate with terrorists?
Better questions. [For real, terrorist negotiators take training in motivational interviewing and similar modalities.]
Like… this truly is a skill that keeps on giving. So, I really should not be surprised that the skill of asking good questions translates quite well to using text-to-text AI tools effectively.
Am I going to be the new queen of ChatGPT prompts?
Challenge accepted.
Listen. If you are deep down the AI black hole yourself, you don’t need me to tell ya anything, mmmkay?
If you are like ME, and you are listening to ALL AI podcasts, receiving ALL AI newsletters, and reading all AI books, and taking all AI courses, and experimenting with endless prompts in all of your free time, and possibly sitting your children down in front of Netflix, so you could experiment with generating a sales page for a client in their specific brand voice, and explore unique angles for another client’s marketing plan for a group coaching program.
If this is you, then high fives, AI friend. Let’s keep riding that crazy train together.
However, most of you are doing NONE of those things, because who the fuck has the time to learn about yet another thing? AND… because tech is overwhelming, AND where do you start? AND you find this AI shit a bit creepy honestly, and you have already wondered multiple times whether or not I have even written this goddamn email myself, and whether all of my emails have been generated by AI for weeks and weeks. Especially considering how sick I was couple of weeks ago, and how did I find the energy to send out that email with all the details of my sickness, huh?
I guess you’ll never know.
Meanwhile, I (or possibly Simone, my AI assistant impersonating me) want to recommend FOUR specific text-to-text AI tools.
Text-to-text just means the subselection of AI tools that take text as input, and give you text as output - and function like any other chatbot, or chat window if you are old enough to have experienced the joys of chatrooms.
[Next week I’ll recommend some text-to-image tools - where you input text, and get an image as output.]
This is the big one. If you are going to try one and only one tool, it should be this one for a few reasons.
It’s easy to sign up.
It’s easy to use.
It can be free. [Yep, the paid version is better. You should probably spend 20 bucks for one month to give it a try. But… unnecessary for you to dip your toes in the AI water.]
Think of it as the Walmart of AI tools. It has sort-of everything, and is the cheapest.
Because it does everything, you don’t have to pick and choose among all the more specialized AI tools. Do you need help with copywriting? Content? Writing a speech for a family function? Need a modification for a recipe? An easy strength program you can do from home?
Yes, there are going to be specialized and possibly better tools for all of those, but ChatGPT will give you a taste of all the things.
Jasper is one of the more-specialized AI tools, specifically for copy and marketing. Think marketing campaigns, email sequences, sales pages.
If ChatGPT is a multi-tool, Jasper is more of a chef’s knife. If I was a copywriter, working on marketing copy all day every day, I would probably choose Jasper.
You specify brand voice (based on a sample text or a URL), select specific assets that you’d like created (e.g. blog posts, emails, sales pages), and get an entire body of work generated that you can review and edit.
Jasper describes my brand voice as:“a casual, conversational tone with friendly informal address, colloquial language, personal anecdotes, self-referential remarks, humor, and a conversational flow to create relatable and engaging content."
Not bad!
Jasper is not free, and not cheap at $49 USD per month. But there is always a free trial to give you a taste of what it’s all about.
It also takes a bit more time to learn, as you are now working within an entire dashboard - place to save outputs, documents, emails and email campaigns.
Probably an overkill for most users, who are not dedicated copywriters and marketers. A lot of success in Jasper seems to rely on you having clear brand assets - brief, brand voice - already developed.
As someone who used to have a part time job, doing medical transcription, I will be forever blown away by technology transcribing audio, and doing it well. I remember turning on the audio file, and pausing it every few seconds, while I’d type up what I heard. Sometimes, I’d have to re-listen to part of the file numerous times to hear what exactly the doctor was saying to the pharma sales rep.
Enter Otter.ai - a nifty little AI tool that “attends” your Zoom meetings - as an actual attendee - and transcribes the whole thing. You then have a transcript of the entire conversation, as well as the ability to chat with the tool ABOUT the conversation.
I can get calls and recordings transcribed retroactively by simply uploading the file, and have the transcription generated. I have been doing this with some group coaching calls I lead, as I can then quickly review the main points, and even ask the chatbot some questions: e.g.“have we talked about cooking in this call?”, or“summarize the next actions that were discussed in this call”, or “what were some of the questions asked in this call?”
The purpose is simple - you can chat with any PDF file. The tool uses ChatGPT backend to process and analyze PDF files.
This is a good example of where a specific tool is better than ChatGPT, even though I could use ChatGPT for the same purpose but would have to utilize some workarounds.
The tool is free, so you should totally play with it. One of the most obvious and awesome uses for the tool - helping you read and understand research articles.
This ^^^ is article I uploaded most recently: "Orthorexia Nervosa, Eating Disorders, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Selective Review of the Last Seven Years". You can view it in full, and use it yourself to play with the tool if you'd like HERE.
Some of the questions I asked:
What did the researchers in this study do?
What were the exclusion criteria for the participants?
Who are the authors of this paper?
What is the relationship between orthorexia and obsessive compulsive disorder?
Few limitations - the tool is primarily aimed at TEXT, so it might not be as helpful if you are mostly looking at pdfs with diagrams and schematic representations. You might run into size limitations with larger pdf files (pdf file limit is 32Mb). If you are reviewing pdf files with sensitive information, privacy might be a concern. Files are uploaded to a secure server, and can be deleted after you are done using them. Of course it will be up to you whether or not that assurance is enough.
Ok. That’s enough tools for one day.
If you want some one on one coaching on how AI can integrate into your business, I am doing 90-min coaching intensives doing just that.
Here’s how it works:
➤ We will spend the first 20-30 minutes, taking a deep dive into the specifics of your business. I want to know what your work looks like, what tasks you are having to complete on a regular basis, and what you love doing, and what you despise doing. ➤ Then I will pull out my best fairy godmother impression, as I sprinkle the AI magic dust, where it would make the most difference. I will make recommendations for specific AI tools (there are thousands on the market to choose from), and show you how to use them for the specific tasks IN your business (and life). ➤ You’ll walk away with a clear understanding of how AI can fit into your business, and make your life easier, as you keep the work you enjoy, and delegate / automate the work you do not. You will finally have your own assistant. I call mine Simone. ;)
The 90-min coaching session is $399USD, or two payments of $199.50USD, and you can sign up HERE. After our session, you will be able to download the Zoom recording of our call for future reference. I will also send you the session notes (taken by Simone obviously). AI will never replace coaches, but coaches who use AI might indeed replace coaches who don’t. Supercoaches use supertools, you know what I’m saying? ;) If you want to get on this spaceship, you can sign up HERE. Can't wait to do magic with you. :
Hugs,
