AI as Your Business Partner: Smart Strategies To Save Time & Gain A Competitive Edge

Elevate your business efficiency and gain a competitive edge by integrating AI as your virtual assistant and strategic partner.

What's Covered:

• Practical methods to leverage AI for refining business ideas.
• Enhancing social media marketing communications through AI tools.
• Identifying market gaps and opportunities with AI-driven insights.
• Conducting competitive analysis using AI technologies.

Tune in to discover how AI can revolutionize your entrepreneurial journey!

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Transcript

[00:00:00]

If you're interested in how you can use AI to refine your ideas. To improve your business communications. How to use AI to find gaps in your market that you can fill and profit from now. How to use AI to get an overview analysis of your competition in minutes. And basically how to gain a teammate through using your free.

AI tools. If you're a solopreneur out there, hello, this is one way that you can improve your speed and your effectiveness basically for free. I mean, of course there's the paid versions, if you'd like to use that, or if you're in a position to use that, but the free version is adequate. It's enough for you to be able to use all the information that I'm about to give you just now.

It's time to [00:01:00] reinvent.

To the Lessons of Entrepreneurship, the Journey of Reinvention podcast. Today, you have me, your host, Priscilla Shumba. I'm a business communication strategist, and I'm here to share with you how to use AI to improve Your daily business functionings as an entrepreneur, as a small business owner, as a solopreneur.

So let's jump right into it.

I'm gonna make four detailed points, so stick with me. The last one I think is gonna be really good, so stick with me. I'll also give some tips on how to use ai. Remember, AI is a tool you have to. Fact check, whatever you get out of your AI, and please do not copy and paste 

cause once you start using this, , you can tell what was written by AI and what actually had someone's personal, touch. AI is a great tool. As a partner in your thinking and improving your business, it is not good when you take the information and use it as it is, because a lot of people are doing that and there are certain [00:02:00] words that AI uses, it's not human, it doesn't know that people don't speak like that, for example, you'll find phrases like, let's delve into this situation, nobody speaks like that, but you find a lot of people are posting such content, which shows you that they use AI, there's certain words that you'll see as you keep using your AI that.

It will continually use, which you can prompt it to say, please replace these words. You should note them down. Replace these words , with synonyms or with conversation style. But anyway, I'm jumping ahead of myself. Let's jump into point number one. , using AI to refine your ideas.

And brainstorming. So most entrepreneurs, we have so many ideas and we don't have enough time to sort of work through how to apply the idea. I mean, there's so much going on that sometimes we just end up shelving ideas. And a great thing to do is if you have an idea, create somewhere where you store these ideas for later or to develop at a [00:03:00] later stage.

But in the meanwhile, you can go on your AR and you can say. , this is the prompt, type in, I've got this product or service, or idea, and then you put in the ideas. Talk to the AI as if you were giving someone instructions, remember it's your assistant, as if you were giving your assistant instructions to create this thing.

Tell the AI exactly what the product idea is, how you think it would work, who you think it would be for, as much as you know. And then ask the AI, what other needs does my target audience have around this problem that my product is not solving?

Or you can go in and say, right, I've got this idea and I'm thinking I need to create some lead magnets to drive traffic to this idea. Prompt the AI, tell it what your product is. Tell it, Who you think is suitable for, you could even ask it who is most suited for this product or who needs this product most.

Remember this idea of refining your ideas and using the [00:04:00] AI to brainstorm. It will give you feedback and you feed it back. It's almost like a conversation, but remember the AI is your assistant. If you're not happy with what it gives you, rephrase it or ask it to search in another way.

But either way, for instance, you've got your product and you want to create some lead magnets to drive business to your product. Take your product fact sheet from your website, just copy and paste it into the AI and then prompt it and say, this is the product that I have. I've included The details of my product, copy and paste it in there and say, what lead magnets can I create?

That will lead my prospect to learn about my offer. Give me 10 ideas, give me 20 ideas, 

and then see what the AI gives you. You can even further prompt it to say of these 20 ideas, which top five match what is trending online. And see what it says. So you can use the AI interactively [00:05:00] to really brainstorm your ideas and refine your ideas without spending loads of time doing all this research.

Mind you, there's so much information out there. It's almost impossible to go through all of it. So the AI is really the best way for you to gain speed and to gain information. If you're not sure about what the AI has given you, you can prompt it to say of the information that you've given me, please provide me the sources so that you can go back to those sources and verify, especially in terms of like statistics and things like that, you know, because it's searching the entire internet, it might give you some other information.

outdated figures. You want to be sure you want to say, I want figures from 2024, whatever year you're looking for. And then also say, please give me the source of these statistics so that you can go there and verify it. That's the other thing that , in the beginning, I brushed through it, but you actually have to fact check the information that the AI is giving you.

It's a great assistant to help you to quickly do things, but before you put your name on [00:06:00] things, you just want to make sure in terms of things like statistics and things that people might take your word for that you want to make sure that it's accurate. The second way that you can use AI is you can use AI to enhance your communications.

All your business communications. You can use AI I mean, you can do it in two ways, but myself, what I typically do is I draft my blog post or my newsletter first, and then I copy and paste it into the AI, and then I say to the AI, I type in the prompt, this is a blog post I've created for this target audience that should drive them to this call to action.

Here is my blog article, copy and paste it. And then I ask it, what can I do to improve this article so that it's more attractive to the reader that I've targeted, and then the AI will give you suggestions. And then I take those suggestions and I go in now and I, make those, , additions to my blog post before I make the final post.[00:07:00]

Other people can use the AI, , to refine the language, , . The other way to do the AI, I've talked about how I do my creative first, and then I put it into the AI and I say, what did I miss? And then I go and I type in what I. Another way to do this is let's say I can give the AI just the idea.

For example, I'd like to write a newsletter for said target audience, whatever your target audience is around these topics, or I'm looking to write something that is trending for my target audience, of reader, . Now, first, I'd say, could you show me what is trending for my target audience online,

and then I'd see what it gives me. Suggest 10,, 10 topics that are trending, in 2024, 2024, be as specific as you can be. Remember, it's almost like you're giving someone instructions. Imagine that you have a teenage assistant. Make sure you give that assistant the exact, what do you want them to do?

They're capable of doing it. , teenagers are very smart. That they need very specific direction of what your expectation is. That's [00:08:00] how you would use the AI. And then I would say from the top five, trending ideas, create for me a newsletter outline for whatever my target audience is, that would lead them to.

Whatever it is that you desire them to do in terms of your call to action. And then the AI will create an outline for you. Then you can go in and flesh out that outline. So instead of starting from scratch, if let's say you're not too sure, you don't have an idea, try that first and come up with your first newsletter.

Remember, it's all just iterating. And then you have an idea of what was good, what didn't work, and you go back and you feed the AI the next time you do another copy of your newsletter. But you can do this with your newsletter, with your sales letter, with your content. So for example, in terms of creating content, content ideas, you could say, I'm creating like when the final quarter now, I'm creating content for my business, which does XYZ for this set [00:09:00]target audience.

And I'd like to promote my Fall services, which is this and this. Could you provide me 20 content ideas that I can use? To market this on Instagram, very specifically on Instagram or on LinkedIn or whatever it is. And then see what it gives you and you can go in , and if you're not happy with it, of course, go back and forth.

Remember, this is your assistant. You want to have an interactive sort of experience with your AI so You can get the best out of it. The other thing I would say is, I should have probably said this at the beginning, is when you're working on something, it's best to ask the AI a continuation of the same thing, so that it's building memory.

So rather than talking about your newsletter, and then you go and talk about market research, and then you go and talk about something else, let's say you're working on your newsletter. Start with the newsletter concepts, ask her things about the newsletter, ask it about the tone of the newsletter. I mean, keep it about the newsletter so that it's [00:10:00]learning from your previous questions, what it is that you want.

And then it's easiest that you're not like constantly having to go back and start from point one of, I am doing this for this and this, and I'd like to, you know, it becomes tedious for yourself. So it's easier for the AI and for yourself, for you to say. This is the task at hand, feed it that and then get the results and continue working on that thing until it's completed before you move on to something else.

The third thing you can do with AI as your assistant is market research. Understanding what's happening in your marketplace and finding the gaps, like where are people underserved and where can you fit yourself in so you can take advantage of an opportunity. I learned this recently from an AI summit that I attended.

One of the speakers, she is into book marketing for businesses. Her name is Karen Williams. And , , she goes under the name, the book mentor. When she's, , trying to find sort of titles and [00:11:00] spaces where her, Book will stand out easily she'll ask the AI, for example,

you're going to write a book about the best summer diet because your business is fitness or nutrition or health. It's in that space. So you could ask the AI, What are the current topics that have been written on whatever it is that you have an idea of writing about? So on summer diets for losing weight or gaining muscle, whatever it is.

the AI so you know what's been written already. Then you'd ask the AI of all the things that have been written, what has not been covered , identify the gaps that have. been left unaddressed by these books and the AI will feed you that.

So you have an idea of how you can differentiate and you just don't add more noise to the market. You have an angle that you're coming from and the AI can do that analysis for you in minutes, and then you have sort of, direction, you know, to say, how can I differentiate in the market, which is really, really great.

And you can do that with your [00:12:00] product, with your service. And like I said, make sure if you're doing it, do it on one page. So the AI is learning from each question, what will come next. And from that memory, it can give you smarter and smarter answers.

You could ask the AI, to give you an idea of the feedback on a certain topic of books. So for example, you could start by saying, could you give me the books that have been written around this topic? The top five selling books that have been written about this topic. It would give you the books. Then you could ask from these books, what has not been covered?

And then it would give you what has not been covered, the gaps. Then you could ask from the reviews of the top five selling books on this topic, tell me what people loved, tell me what people hated from the reviews. And then it'll give you that. So it's a really great tool. Things that could have taken you Hours and hours, if not days, especially if you're working alone or you have a small team, you know, there's so many projects you [00:13:00] have going on.

It's hard for you to get to all of these things, but even using this idea of the market research, you can market research your lead magnet so that you're creating a lead magnet that addresses something that other people haven't addressed. And that is a need that your, , client actually has. And from there you can do other things, , testing to see other opportunities.

That may arise from that one thing of an area that is left unaddressed. And remember, even for the lead magnet, you can go and create the outline. Make an outline for me, on this topic, based on this and this. Remember, if it's on the same page, it's easy for it. It's smart learning.

But it is that you're after and what your business is about. And it can produce an outline for you. And then you just go and flesh it out. And there you go. On Canva and you have your lead magnet. The other thing that the AI can do for you is to really do some competitive analysis. Let's say you're not sure how much to charge for something or what other people in your space are charging for something that is similar. You could ask the AI to look at your, Competitors pricing.[00:14:00]

So do you have an idea of this product for this kind of target in this area, in this country, how much are people charging generally and what are they including in this service to be able to charge this amount? And you can do that, in a matter of minutes and have an idea of where your product falls.

And if you're pricing yourself competitively as a starting point, because obviously if you provide, you know, a white glove service that other people are not Providing, and that's your, unique differentiator in the market. At least it gives you a point of like, well, you know, don't charge X amount. Other people who are not doing white glove are charging this amount.

So start there , and then test your market to see, how to price it best, but at least you have that initial analysis that it gives you the direction of where you should go. , the last tip I wanted to say is make sure that you feed the AI your tone and your brand voice so that when it does produce stuff for you, content captions for Instagram or captions for.

LinkedIn or, an [00:15:00] outline for a blog post for your website. You want the AI to have an idea of how you sound. If you were to take five words that describe, your brand voice, for example, you want it , to come across as professional at the same time, conversational, you want it to sound authoritative, you want it to sound. Thought provoking whatever is in line with , your business brand, you would tell the AI for example, I've given it my blog post. I copy and pasted it. And then I say, make the changes and apply my brand voice to this writing and then see what the AI gives you.

After describing your brand voice. So there's so much that can be done with AI and now AI can do graphics and video. So this is just the beginning. As an entrepreneur, if you're working alone, make use of your AI to speed up your time, to speed up your effectiveness, and to give you that back and forth that you may not have when you're working alone as a solopreneur, bounce ideas back and forth, have a conversation.

With your [00:16:00] AI and refine your ideas. I'm so excited for this and I hope this podcast episode was useful.