Speaker 1 (00:00:04) - Welcome to Thelotco Business Podcast, a show all about helping you as a retailer, brand or creative understand the actual business side of running your business. I have a straightforward, practical advice about the nitty gritty of making money from your creative passion. We will be covering bite size, business and marketing lessons, as well as interviews with experts and trailblazers in the fashion, homewares and design industries. My name is Melissa Robbins. I'm a business coach, colour loving, non coffee drinking melburnian. Let's get into it. Hello and welcome to today's episode. My name's Melissa Robbins. I am super excited to be here and share with you some things that are going to hopefully help you save time in your business. Now, what I wanted to talk to you about today is all about AI and how to use it in your business, and what are some examples of some ways that other people are using it in their business as well? I am a product based business coach and I work with lots of businesses to help them, either with their retail business, with their wholesale business, with their brand, to actually grow and scale and figure out those ways to manage your business in a way that saves you time and energy.
Speaker 1 (00:01:08) - And so you're not hustling all the time. That is definitely something I want to help people avoid. All right. So I now, the reason I'm doing this episode is because I was speaking to someone the other day and they had said to me, they've never used ChatGPT, which I know that a lot of people have, and I know that a lot of people are have tested it out, even even if you're not using it regularly. And what it made me realize is that there's definitely lots of people who don't even know what sort of things that I can do for you, and what sort of ways it can be used in your business. So I thought I would really get going and just give you a few examples to help you kickstart, or maybe brainstorm ideas about what it can, ways it can help you as well. All right. So nearly every app, first of all, is starting to add it into their platform. So let's say if you use Clickup if you use notion if you use Google, they all are starting to add it into their system.
Speaker 1 (00:02:03) - If you use Chrome, there's all sorts of add ons you can add on to those systems already. So utilizing the things that are already in the apps that you have is a great starting point. So let's get going there. What you need to do as you move forward though, and this probably refers a little bit more to ChatGPT as one example is you need to start giving it the right prompts and you need to start giving it. Ask the right questions to be able to get a better response. So the more informed or the more information you can give the AI, the better your response is going to be. Now, I had a podcast a couple of weeks ago with Katrina from Copy Smith, and she talked about how to use AI for blog writing and how to use it in a way that Google likes as well, because we don't want to all start to any generic. We don't want to always start selling the same or like a machine. Or often you'll get a prompt back and you're like, that does not sound like me at all.
Speaker 1 (00:02:56) - You still need to have personality in what you're putting out, but it's just a way that it can help you save some time, and it can help trigger things and give you ideas and concepts that you know it might take you a long time to do if you didn't have it. So it's just a great tool to use and start to use in your business. All right. So first one we're going to go through is just the example. I'm just going to read out all different things. And I'll give you a checklist at the end of this as well that you can grab and download and look at the examples I provide. So content creation, it can definitely help you figure out what sort of things to put out there, what you're going to use on social media. You can check whether your current Instagram strategy is aligned to what you think it should be. So asking ChatGPT or the AI to actually review your Instagram review content that you put out now and see what it comes back with. So you might ask it to check your content pillars and give suggestions for improvement.
Speaker 1 (00:03:55) - That would be one thing that you could do. You could ask it to create a marketing plan, a marketing outline like blog content. What sort of ideas could you use to connect your customer based on who your target customer is? Maybe you can get it to even once you've got that topic, you can get it to give you an outline, to give you the triggers of what you need to write in your blog. Content. You could get it to write down scripts. What can you write to a influencer or to someone you want to work with as a collaboration? So marketing scripts and things like that, you can ask it to do that sort of thing, and it's going to pull from examples that are all around, obviously on the internet already. So it's pulling from people who are utilizing this at the current time, actually writing emails to customers. So one way I use my Google Chrome extension in my email is it gives an auto reply sometime. So if someone's ask me a question, you can just literally type in or tap the space button and it will just send ask you one of the replies.
Speaker 1 (00:04:55) - It might just be like a, you know, a simple reply, but it's just written in a way that I probably would never write, and so it's a much more informed way to write it. So that's just one way that I use it. Right now I'm writing captions for your Instagram and social. That is a great tool because it can really give you, you know, little triggers a little. Is that something you might not have thought of already? And it can save you time. So again, it comes back to what you put in and ask for and how much you've worked with your eye before that to give it examples of your writing and the way that you speak. And you can do that as you, you know, use paid platforms and things as well. And so the more it knows your voice and your tone and your the way that you speak. And even I heard someone the other day say to ChatGPT less sassy. So I didn't want it to be as sassy, so, you know, might come back with something.
Speaker 1 (00:05:44) - You're like, you, this is great, but can you please, please make it less sassy than what it was before or more excited? Like, you can definitely add those things in and ask it for changes and tweaks as well. Writing scripts for videos. How can you actually get it? To help you know what to say about a particular brand or a story based on information you might provide. If you are a product business, you can use it to track stock, analyze numbers, your data using the systems that you know, read information and look at trends and things like that. There's lots of inventory systems which would be using it now to really help perform the job better. Product descriptions. If you're writing something on your website, again, it depends on what you put in, depends what you're going to get out. But it can definitely help you. And it might even be like, you know, combine these two descriptions to create a unique description, or use this description and make it a little bit more emotional or descriptive.
Speaker 1 (00:06:40) - So all of those things, you can ask it for more information. Job descriptions and job tasks. This is a big one for those who are hiring people looking to outsource things. What can you ask it? To? Write a job description for a particular task that you do, or even create a standard operating procedure for something that a form that you have a list of tasks. And you might do this. I've talked about this a little while. I think it was in my mastermind where we were talking about it, where if you're onboarding staff quite a lot and you don't have time to sit down and type everything out and stuff like that, using things like Otter. So Otter is one of the tools I use quite a lot where it's voice to text. So I will speak into and it will take the audio that I'm giving it. I'll speak into the app and I'll then, you know, spit out the text and of that. So you could literally, while you're driving, give yourself a to do list and then, you know, created in a text.
Speaker 1 (00:07:33) - Or you could write down the list of tasks that someone has to do to perform this job. And then it would give you a list of in a text and format it in a text, sorry, in text. So all those sort of little tools are time savers. They can really make a difference to what you're getting done in your day. Create a presentation with Canva or Canva is awesome. I totally love Canberra and what it can do, but what it's AI component that it's added is just next level. Some of the stuff that can do is quite crazy, like remove things from photos, replace them with something else. It can create a whole presentation for you based on, you know, particular topic, and it might not give you all the content. Of course, the right content, but it's going to give you that baseline and a much easier starting point than if you're starting something from scratch. So all of those things can really, really help. Meeting with staff I use supernormal as a tool on my website so that when I have particular meetings on Google Meet, then it can take notes for me.
Speaker 1 (00:08:34) - And it gives you this amazing summary and the points that it gives me back. Honestly, I showed some on the other day and they like mind blown of how good it was and how they started straight away. They're like, I need to buy this right now and I'm going to use it in my business all the time. So that's another one that you can use. I talked about replying to emails already writing reviews. Maybe you get it to write a review for you that you have to do, or you get people suggestions for people to predict in sales, you know, based on your previous data, what's going to happen next, what sort of demand you need for your inventory, how to reduce shipping costs like what is the best route? What is the best service? Get it to search and source. You know, different companies that could come from this particular place. If you're sourcing something from overseas, you can use it for chat bots online. Anyone who hasn't already seen I'm sure everyone has now the many chat, which is a great online tool for you.
Speaker 1 (00:09:30) - Put in a word or your. If someone comments or DMs your word, then it will give you all this auto response you have to set up. But once it's set up, you know it's there. Same thing if you have clients or customers online asking particular questions, it might just give you those, you know, list of frequently asked questions. And it might just give you people answers to things quite quickly. So that's an amazing tool for staying connected with customers as well. Even something I set up the other day was Auto Reply for stories. So, you know, just so you're actually making contact with people and they're actually getting a response when they're sharing something of yours. It's amazing as a form of research. Now this is not its purpose. So just keep this in mind that it is not Google. It's not another good. But obviously it is trawling the web for information, so it might be able to give you some information. One of the things I did the other day was like, you know, give me a list of three warehouses in Australia that work with small boutique brands.
Speaker 1 (00:10:25) - That was the search that I put in and it came up with five. I actually said five. It actually came up with five different ones of different, a different three pls that I could use from a warehouse search. You could use it for managing your calendar in a more efficient way. You can get it to, you know, move things around based on what you're doing, and it will make it more efficient for you. Streamline tasks or activities to really maximize your time. You can upload documents to Canva, and Canva can edit it for you, or you can upload a PDF. And then you've got that baseline and you're just having to tweak some things that you might have already done previously. All right. So I've covered quite a lot of different things that it can do. And this clearly is only scratching the surface. This is the very beginning of AI and the very start of what it can do. But it is already just showing and it might freak some people out. There might be like, oh, I don't want to use it.
Speaker 1 (00:11:20) - It's too scary. Or to I'm worried about what it's going to, information it's going to take and or it's going to give me the wrong output. So you really do have to get better and better at giving the right prompts and input. So it gives you the best output. But you know, you're only going to get that with practice and by learning different things. Or I'll give you a few examples in the download that I have. You can grab that in the show notes. And you know, the more you do it, the more you realize what it can start to do for you. I'm just going to read out a couple of different ones. I've already touched on a few already, but I'm just going to touch on a couple more as well because there's some of the ones I use, or there's some of the ones that I have heard other people use as well. So let's go. Thoughts? Bot sage. And guess what? I got this for a list from the AI, and lots of the ones that I use was like great perfect list for me because I already use lots of them and it's just going to help me explain more of them.
Speaker 1 (00:12:10) - So thought Spot Sage, which is a business efficiency tool, clearly ChatGPT is one that lots of people know about and can give you help with lots of tasks. Some of the chrome extensions that I've got are like the Google Bard or Jasper. They're, you know, using for within the systems on web websites that you have open. HubSpot has different things and integrates with ChatGPT. So the gist for AI content generation, Zenefits, which is for HR management, Trello, which is task management, I use it all the time. You can get even when I'm walking, you know, using Trello. And I'll just have an idea. I just pop right into my trolley board because it's not an app, so it's easy to access as well. Grammarly is an AI writing assistant. Zapier or I love Zapier. I've talked about this before. It is one of those tools that connects so many different things in your business, and so many different tasks that you're probably already doing, and automates them. My dream toggles, which is an AI enhanced time tracking.
Speaker 1 (00:13:04) - Hootsuite. So that's social media management. Canva as again, I love Canva. The AI that it can perform is crazy and the stuff that it's starting to do now, like animations and graphics or so good. Miro is a whiteboard tool. Wit is a speech recognition. The one I mentioned before was Otter, which is an app on your phone which text your voice to text. So many different examples and obviously yeah, just touching on some of them. Airtable database management and collaboration. This are so many that I think you should start with one. If you haven't done any at all yet, kick start with one and try and get better and better at asking it certain things and asking it to do certain things, even if it means like, let's say, Zapier, you used API, there's a free version and you can get it. And this is the thing, lots of these things have free versions you can just test out. And then if you feel like you're going to use them a lot, you know, pain 15 to $20 maybe a month depends on how many you're going to have.
Speaker 1 (00:14:02) - But the time that they can save you can be crazy. So it's actually going to be worth the money for what it can actually help you do and help you achieve. So generally making sure you have the right prompts to go in. And as I said, I'll give you some examples of what they look like and what they could be and how to actually ask it the right information to give a get a better response. And then I'll give you the list of tools of which one's examples and where they are and how to find them. And then also, you know, just the ideas about where you can use it in your business. All right. So I hope that's helped. I hope that's giving you that little bit of a trigger, a little bit of an idea to maybe start using AI somewhere in your business. What are the ways that you think it could apply to your business, or what are those repetitive tasks that take a long time to do? Or, you know, time suck and you just hate doing or you're dread? Is there some way that you can add AI into it? Is there some way you can automate certain things in your business? Is there some way that you can use it to save you that energy, the pain of actually doing it in the first place? So if you're doing something repeatedly, see if there is a way to automate that task or streamline aspects of it.
Speaker 1 (00:15:10) - Let me know how you go. Let me know. Which things work for you, and I look forward to hearing more, and I look forward to sharing more with you next week. Speak to you soon. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to Thelotco Business Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you subscribe to receive future episodes as they are released. And I'd be so, so grateful for a review on Apple Podcast. If you would like a copy of the show notes or any of the links mentioned today, please jump on to my website at www.thelotco.com.au/podcast. Have an amazing week and I look forward to chatting to you again soon.