ChatGPT: Beyond the Hype — Practical Applications & Game-Changing Strategies for Small Business Owners

In the ever-evolving digital landscape, small businesses need to stay ahead of the curve to remain competitive. One such game-changer that has captured the attention of entrepreneurs worldwide is ChatGPT, an advanced AI language model with the potential to revolutionize various industries. But what does it truly offer, and how can it be utilized effectively by small businesses? In this article, we share our journey in exploring ChatGPT’s capabilities and the impact it had on our own business operations. Through our hands-on experience, we uncover its hidden potential, provide practical tips on how to optimize its use, and offer insights on how it can be a valuable asset for small businesses seeking to improve their processes and drive growth. Dive in with us as we unravel the mysteries of ChatGPT and shed light on its significance for small business owners.

A History lesson

Throughout its development history, ChatGPT and its underlying GPT architecture have demonstrated continuous improvement in natural language understanding and generation, leading to a wide array of practical applications across various industries and domains.

OpenAI has attracted investments from a diverse group of high-profile investors and technology leaders. While a comprehensive list of investors is not publicly available, some of the key individuals and organizations involved in OpenAI’s funding and establishment include:

Why is this crucial? To accurately assess the impact of a new technology and make informed predictions about its future, we must delve into its history and determine whether it has a solid foundation or is merely another overhyped IT solution that depends on the likes of Elon Musk for continued relevance. While we aren’t in a position to evaluate ChatGPT’s technical prowess — a task best left to expert IT professionals — we can certainly share our insights from a business perspective. So, let’s dive into the benefits of ChatGPT by recounting our own experience using it to address our company’s needs.

Background

In January, like many other small business owners, we were eager to try a new technology that everyone was talking about — ChatGPT 3.5. The hype surrounding its potential to revolutionise various industries seemed exaggerated, and we didn’t see how it could benefit our business.

We began by asking it a series of trivial questions, only to discover that its training data was limited to information up until 2021. This limitation made it challenging to obtain current insights or guidance tailored to our specific needs.

Despite the widespread concerns that ChatGPT would replace developers, customer support, designers, and other professionals, we struggled to see its value beyond being a more interactive version of Wikipedia. While it could provide accurate and structured answers to general questions, it couldn’t offer expert advice based on our unique circumstances.

Nonetheless, we decided to explore how others were using ChatGPT and discovered some creative applications that showcased its potential for small businesses like ours. Through research and hands-on experimentation, we began to view ChatGPT from a different perspective, realising that it could offer more value than we initially thought. While it may not replace industry professionals or provide tailor-made guidance, ChatGPT can still be a powerful tool for small businesses when used effectively and strategically.

Where is the Magic?

Initially, when posing general query to ChatGPT, the responses received are comparable to what you’d find through a simple Google search, particularly when relying on up-to-date information. However, the true power of ChatGPT unfolds when presented with specific, narrowly-focused questions that aren’t as easily searchable. Let’s explore an example.

You can see that the first question is quite general and doesn’t require an extensive knowledge base to answer. However, the second question highlights a key distinction between search engines and ChatGPT — the ability to quickly obtain a response to a more complex query. This is where ChatGPT truly shines.

When dealing with questions that require a certain level of expertise in fields such as marketing, SEO, content writing, legal advice, and more, it’s naturally best to consult a specialist, isn’t it? Interestingly, ChatGPT possesses the ability to provide expert-level responses to your inquiries. All you need to do is prompt it accordingly, for instance, by saying, “Act as a Marketing expert.”

Furthermore, to optimise your ChatGPT query performance, consider employing this prompt engineering template as a strategic tool:

Take on the persona of [Expert Persona]

[Verb] [Format & Length]

[Objective]

The output should include relevant [Data]

The writing style is [Tone of voice] targeted towards [Audience]

Other useful prompt and tricks can be found all over the internet, this particular one we found at @mr.grateful instagram account.

Another observation we’ve made is that when initiating a new chat, ChatGPT retains and utilises the information shared within the conversation. This enables the AI to deliver increasingly personalised and relevant responses, enhancing the overall user experience.

Additionally, you can explore more of ChatGPT’s capabilities and useful tips in the following article.

We’re now excited to share our journey, detailing the experiment we undertook with ChatGPT, how it benefited our business, and how it can potentially be advantageous for other business owners as well.

Down the rabbit hole

As a small business in the UK, we often face limitations in terms of having access to experts outside of our core sector, such as marketing, SEO, and graphic design. Nonetheless, in today’s competitive landscape, we recognise the importance of brand awareness and have been eager to update our website to attract new customers organically. This challenge highlighted our limitations, as our collective efforts couldn’t substitute the expertise of a marketing professional. After experimenting with ChatGPT and uncovering some of its hidden capabilities mentioned earlier, we resolved to put it to the test again for our website project.

Sad as it seems, we had to begin from scratch, identifying all the essential components needed to create the magical creature known as a website. Even with ChatGPT’s assistance, the sheer volume of factors to consider and information to gather made the task seem increasingly daunting by a second. Here are the key ingredients we had to incorporate into our digital brew to approach the desired outcome:

1. Identify our target audience to better understand their needs and preferences.
2. Conduct market research to gain insights into the industry landscape.
3. Analyse our competitors’ marketing strategies to identify areas of opportunity.
4. Create client personas to better comprehend potential client behaviour and preferences, incorporating psychological insights.
5. Determine the essential building blocks of our website to best represent our business.
6. Strategically organise information sections on the website for optimal user experience.
7. Revamp website content to make it more appealing to potential customers.
8. Identify relevant SEO keywords and seamlessly integrate them into our content.
9. Research design trends and develop potential website visuals, using resources like Pinterest for inspiration.
10. Pinpoint key marketing strategies tailored to our business sector.
11. Select the most suitable social media channels to reach our target audience.
12. Develop search engine marketing campaigns to boost online visibility.
13. Reevaluate our existing packaged solutions based on the research findings.

Indeed, the list seems overwhelming, particularly when you’re unfamiliar with half of the terms, as we were. Utterly terrified, we began our quest with distinguishing the differences between a landing page and a homepage, gradually navigated through each bullet-point with the assistance of our newfound ally, ChatGPT. Armed with just a list of the services our practice offers, ChatGPT managed to generate informative responses and explanations for all our questions, while retaining information about each subject to produce remarkably accurate results. ChatGPT proved to be an invaluable tool for our team and a patient companion throughout our journey.

A natural question to ask is, “How much time did the entire process take?” Surprisingly, we completed the research within just 2 weeks. Comparing this to our previous experiences, which took months, ChatGPT significantly reduced the time required and provided invaluable insights that would have been challenging to obtain using traditional search engines alone. Instead of spending days and considerable funds on courses and books, ChatGPT’s $20 subscription delivered the answers we needed in mere seconds. Consequently, it became our ultimate resource, saving us money, time, and countless headaches.

All that remains for us now is to assemble our work and present it to our audience for evaluation. Additionally, we’re eager to share the queries and responses we’ve gathered with other small businesses as a helpful guide, fostering a sense of community and support.

Following this experience, we were curious to discover other areas in which ChatGPT could assist us, beyond its expertise in marketing.

Unseen potential

Besides our own experiment, ChatGPT can offer a plenty helpful features. To witness its potential firsthand, simply ask it a question and let ChatGPT speak for itself:

“generate key points for a blog post about benefits of ChatGPT for business and entrepreneurs”

Impressive, isn’t it? Clearly, if you’re expecting a complete solution to all your business challenges, you may be slightly disappointed. It’s essential to recognise that ChatGPT, in its current form, may not be a one-stop solution but rather an incredibly supportive partner in your endeavours. When viewed from this perspective, you can genuinely appreciate its potential and be amazed by the benefits it offers right now.

If you’ve gone through the history overview earlier in this article, you may have observed Microsoft’s involvement in ChatGPT’s development. Exciting news for all Microsoft Suite users — ChatGPT’s capabilities will soon be integrated into their upcoming Co-pilot project. You can find a comprehensive description of this development from the Microsoft team.

Another consideration is not to limit yourself to ChatGPT alone but to explore other AI models to see if any are more tailored to your specific needs. If you’re familiar with this subject, you’ve likely come across Futurepedia — a resource that provides information on various AI tools available. While some of them appear promising, others are essentially ChatGPT API-connected shells that perform similar tasks.

We’ve identified a few intriguing examples that we plan to investigate beyond their enticing descriptions, further expanding our understanding of AI tools.

1. IngestAI

A tool that helps people turn their knowledge base into a chatbot-like assistant. The tool is compatible with Slack, Discord, Whatsapp, Telegram, and more. It takes minutes to get started and supports uploading Knowledge-base files such as Markdown, TXT, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Notion and Confluence. It will provide accurate AI/Chatbot-generated answers to questions about related materials. People can use it to help answer questions about their product, services, company knowledge base, and more

2. Descript

Descript AI is an innovative and user-friendly tool that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to streamline and enhance the process of creating, editing, and managing multimedia content. Designed for content creators, podcasters, video editors, and marketing professionals, Descript AI offers a seamless, integrated platform that combines the capabilities of transcription, editing, and collaboration in one intuitive interface.

3. Echowin

AI-powered call management system designed to streamline customer interactions and business tasks. Key features and advantages include:

Natural language understanding: Provides personalized responses for various scenarios

Fully automated: Handles phone calls 24/7, allowing businesses to focus on core operations

Real-time visibility: Offers insight into customer interactions for better decision-making

Our team reviews

Aside from our primary goal of creating a website, we asked each team member to test ChatGPT and share their honest opinion on its usefulness in handling everyday tasks.

“I appreciated ChatGPT’s ability to provide rapid responses to my inquiries, which significantly reduced the time I spent on research. I also found it extremely helpful that I didn’t have to start from scratch and could easily tailor the generated text to my preferences — making it an excellent foundation for emails, blog posts, and other content. However, its data is limited to 2021, and many of the answers I received felt quite AI-like (missing a human touch), which could be a drawback for certain applications…” — Elizabeth (account manager)

“As an accountant, ChatGPT assisted me in finding a software solution for payroll management in France and proved useful in completing my written consultations. Typically, I would provide it with a text excerpt, and it helped me generate a more concise and comprehensive text, streamlining my work process…” — Anton ( chief accountant)

“I’ve found ChatGPT to be pretty helpful in my day-to-day work. It’s been great for quickly putting together legal summaries, helping me draft contracts, and pointing me towards relevant case law or regulations. Plus, it’s been a lifesaver when I need to break down complex legal jargon into plain language for my clients. While ChatGPT can’t replace an experienced lawyer, it’s been a reliable sidekick and a real time-saver for many of my legal tasks…” — Daria ( legal professional)

Conclusion

In conclusion, ChatGPT has been a valuable asset for the Persona Finance team, enhancing both our website research and business operations. Despite its data being limited to 2021, with caution and verification, it serves as a reliable starting point for various tasks, reducing time spent on research and content creation.

The key to unlocking its potential lies in understanding its limitations and using it as a complementary resource rather than a complete solution. By doing so, small businesses can harness the power of ChatGPT to optimise their work processes and drive their businesses forward.

We hope our story encourages more businesses to integrate ChatGPT into their practices. While ChatGPT may not yet address all business needs, we at Persona Finance remain dedicated to assisting small businesses and entrepreneurs with accounting and legal services.