Where do I start? ·

Where do I start with AI? A plain answer for people who run a business

Everyone says you should be using it. You opened ChatGPT, typed something, got three paragraphs of fluff, and closed it. That isn't a you problem. You started in the wrong place.

Don't start with the tool. Start with a task.

Most advice starts with "here's what ChatGPT can do", which is a list of everything, which is a list of nothing. Go the other way round. Pick one task you already do every week and are sick of, and set the tool up to do the first draft of that one thing. Not a new task. Not a "strategy". A quote. The follow-up email when the quote goes quiet. A call's notes turned into a list of who does what.

The reason is boring. The tool is only useful when it knows your business, and it only knows your business for the length of one task. Give it one, specifically, and it's good. Give it "help me with my business" and you get the fluff.

The three moves

1. Pick the task

Recurring, tedious, mostly text. If you can describe it in one sentence — "when a customer texts for a quote, I send back a price in our format" — it's a candidate. The best first ones, because they're common and the payoff is obvious: a quote from a customer's request, the follow-up when it goes quiet, and a call's notes into to-dos and an "as discussed" email.

2. Decide what's safe to paste

Before you paste anything, sort it. Public: your website, your reviews. Internal: your price list, how you schedule the week — fine in a free tool once you've turned training off in its settings. Confidential: customer financials, anyone's personal details, passwords — stays out. Do this once; it takes ten minutes, and it's the thing that lets you stop worrying. The full version, with where the settings are, is in Is ChatGPT safe for confidential information?

3. Save the prompt where you'll find it

Write down what worked — the exact instructions, an example of how you write, the rules ("never say 'circling back'") — and put it somewhere you'll see next Tuesday. A Project in ChatGPT. A Google Doc. A note on your phone. Nearly everyone who "tried it and it didn't stick" skipped this step. They got a good result once, then started from a blank chat the next time, explained the whole business again, and gave up. That's the wall, and it's a paper one.

What it's good at, and what it isn't

Good at: the first draft of anything you'd write anyway. Sorting, summarising, tidying. Rewriting in a different tone. Explaining a document you don't want to read. Giving you three versions so you can pick one.

Bad at: facts it wasn't given — it will invent a price, a date, a name, and say it with a straight face. Arithmetic; do that in the spreadsheet. Knowing your business; it has read the internet, it hasn't read your Tuesday. Knowing when it's wrong.

So the rule for every task is the same: it drafts, you check. Numbers, names, dates, and prices get verified every time. Anything a customer will read, you read first. That isn't a caveat on the method. It is the method, and it's why the checking should take one minute and the setup should take ten.

One task, end to end

Say the task is the follow-up. You wrote a quote last Tuesday and heard nothing. You open the chat where you saved your instructions and type:

Quoted: front bed — shrub removal, mulch, plants. $1,128, sent Sept 24. They mentioned a graduation party in May. Three short follow-ups in my voice, under 90 words, one question each.

You get three. One says "circling back", which you'd never say, so you change it. One mentions "the photos you sent", and there were no photos, so that one goes. You send the third, on the original thread so they see the price again. Two minutes. The next time, you'll add "never say circling back" to the saved instructions, and it'll be one.

That is the whole thing. Not a course, not a program — one task, set up once, checked every time.

Next, depending on what you're stuck on

This page grows as we answer more of the questions people bring to the Fit Call.

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