OpenAI introduced the first consumer-facing “generative pretrained transformer,” also known as ChatGPT 3.5, in late 2022, thousands of articles, podcasts and posts have been published about the paradigm-shifting possibilities it offers.

But many small business owners may feel frustrated about how to use the tool to their advantage.

Many new users never truly realize the potential of GenAI technology such as ChatGPT, for two main reasons:

1. Lack of iteration: Many users encounter disappointing initial responses from ChatGPT and hastily conclude it’s inadequate for their needs, without attempting to refine or guide the AI through further interaction. This premature judgment misses the potential for improvement and customization.

2. Failure to customize: Users often receive generic responses that don’t reflect their unique voice or brand identity. This occurs because they haven’t invested time in training ChatGPT with specific instructions tailored to their audience, use case, or desired content length and style.

By personalizing and shaping ChatGPT with custom instructions, you can turn generic responses into tailored, on-brand responses. With a little patience, subject matter experts can train and shape the bot to produce impressive results faster, cheaper and better.

Why ChatGPT’s Ideas Need Shaping

Generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT draw from vast amounts of information to prepare responses. While it’s easy for the bot to complete research and provide lots of suggestions, that doesn’t necessarily mean the responses are any good.

A recent study conducted by Jeremy Utley of Stanford University and Kian Gohar, CEO of Geolab, proves this. The researchers partnered with two U.S. companies and two European companies for the study. Employees in each firm worked in small teams to approach a company problem. Some of the teams used GenAI while others did not.

The teams had a limited amount of time to think about and outline potential solutions, which were then evaluated by members of the organization.

The researchers were surprised by the results. They had hypothesized that teams using GenAI would come up with more and better ideas than the others. But the research showed that while the teams leveraging ChatGPT did generate more ideas, they also generated fewer outstanding ideas.

“Generative AI helped workers avoid awful ideas, but it also led to more average ideas,” Gohar said.

It’s true that the potential for problem solving with GenAI is real. It’s also true that iteration is key. Initially, ChatGPT’s responses may not hit the mark, but through a process of refinement — much like mentoring a new employee— you can mold its outputs to your exacting standards.

Using the strategies and techniques described in this article, we’ve been able to help our clients outline materials of average complexity in minutes instead of hours. Even complex materials can be outlined in hours instead of weeks, making the iterative process worthwhile.

Here’s how to refine ChatGPT’s outputs to be accurate,
on-brand, and genuinely useful to your business: Customize ChatGPT with your “global settings”

In your profile, you have an option called “Customize ChatGPT.” This is where you can add preferences that will be applied on a global level to all responses generated.

It’s a great place to add instructions about the brand voice you wish ChatGPT to emulate, including  preferences for tone (e.g., direct, poetic, technical), language complexity, and writing style.

Ensure that the instructions you give to ChatGPT include elements of your brand’s identity, such as key messaging, terminology, and any unique stylistic preferences that differentiate your brand.

Compartmentalize Complex Tasks

Break down complex tasks into smaller, manageable parts when instructing ChatGPT. This not only makes it easier for ChatGPT to generate accurate responses but also allows you to pinpoint where adjustments are needed.

For example, developing a 90-day onboarding plan for a new employee could start with you defining six major objectives for the individual. One by one, you can then ask ChatGPT to suggest activities and comprehension tests that the individual could complete while tackling each objective. You could then ask it to write a description, time limit, and standard operating procedure for each activity.

By taking this in small pieces, the bot is more effectively able to draw from its available information, combine it with your instructions and shaping, and produce material that is more appropriate for your needs.

Use ChatGPT to Begin Idea Generation

Using GenAI is a wonderful way to get unstuck. Few people enjoy staring at a blank page, but subject matter experts are often able to quickly improve on the first draft created by a bot.

Specify the content type, your goal, the desired content length and clarity (avoiding jargon, using layman’s terms) according to the target audience’s preferences and the content’s purpose.

You can leverage ChatGPT for generating a wide variety of ideas, such as product expansions for selected audiences, marketing content and social media strategies, outlining job descriptions and SOPs, or solving operational challenges.

While it is unlikely that you will get the perfect answer the first time, it is very likely that you will crack the seal and start to make progress quickly.

Have Responses Reviewed by a Subject Matter Expert

You probably wouldn’t accept the first response from an intern with confidence. In the same way, the first response from GenAI should not be blindly accepted and used. This is a recipe for embarrassing mistakes and damage to your brand reputation.

The symbiosis between AI capabilities and human expertise is what transforms good responses into great ones. Ensure that responses from ChatGPT are reviewed by subject matter experts to guarantee accuracy and relevance, especially in specialized domains. Their insights can help ensure that the content is not only on brand but also accurate and relevant to your audience.

Over time and with proper training, you may be able to relax the amount of high-level expertise that is required for review; however, make it a habit to have an educated human review all material before publishing or sharing it.

Use Chat History as a Learning Tool

Unless you change the setting or manually delete a conversation, ChatGPT holds a record of all past chats in its history. This allows you to go back days, weeks or months to pick up on a previous conversation and build on it.

In our example of developing a 90-day onboarding plan for a new employee, let’s say they complete that period successfully. You can go back to the same conversation in history and work with the bot to build a similar success plan for the next quarter, six months, year and so forth. It will retain the same information about the job description, success metrics, and anything else you provided to it, making the outputs relevant to the situation.

Get to Similar Results Faster in the Future

You can also use the history feature in ChatGPT to review past interactions, learn from them, and refine future prompts. That said, there’s a mind-blowing hack that I love to use.

Ask ChatGPT to review and analyze your instructions and suggest ways to streamline and improve efficiency for future interactions. This allows the technology to show you how to construct prompts and more complicated prompt protocols so it can do its best work.

If you study the revised, streamlined versions that it suggests you use in the future, you will start to notice how phrasing, specificity of instructions and context become critical to generating valuable responses.

Best Practices and Cautions: Keep a Copy of Prompt Protocol Outside of ChatGPT

Keep a copy of your detailed instructions in document format. This backup helps guard against an accidental deletion of customized instructions. It also facilitates the easy repetition or refinement of future tasks, and makes it safe to share with others in your organization who use similar instructions in their work.

Check Facts and Citations

Verify the facts and citations provided by ChatGPT to avoid the spread of misinformation or reliance on “hallucinated” data. In my custom instructions, I give the bot explicit directions to take time required to do the research, give citations, and provide direct links to the source material whenever possible. ChatGPT 3.5 can’t do this, since it isn’t connected to the internet. However, ChatGPT 4.0 can and will do it, if you insist.

Be mindful of Privacy and Data Sensitivity

Use common sense when adding detailed context or specific data, especially in fields where HIPAA compliance and privacy issues are a concern. Do not upload private, proprietary, or sensitive information into ChatGPT, even with the paid Plus, Team, and Enterprise models, unless you’re certain of the privacy measures in place.

A Valuable Investment for Business Optimization

I highly recommend upgrading to the paid “Plus” version of ChatGPT. This currently costs $20 per month and gives you:

• Access to the more advanced GPT-4, which is better at analysis than version 3.5

• The AI imaging power of DALL-E

• Real-time web browsing capabilities

• The ability to create custom GPTs without needing to input new instructions every time.

This option to build a library of “My GPTs” is underused by many small business owners. In my opinion, this is where the tool really starts to expand into better territory, not just faster and cheaper.

We’ve started to build and train our own versions of tools for workforce enablement, sales and marketing.

Over time, we’ll refine and expand this library for use by our organization and those of our clients, leveraging it to solve real business problems quickly and effectively.

A “Team” version is now also available ($25 per person, per month) and has two big differences over Plus:

• You can create and share custom GPTs with your workspace, ensuring that everyone in your organization is using the same shaped and tested prompt protocols.

• Team data is excluded from training by default. This means OpenAi does not train on your business data, and you own your inputs and outputs (where allowed by law).

Embracing ChatGPT in your business is not just about leveraging AI; it’s about crafting a digital apprentice that grows with you, understanding your needs and nuances. As you venture into this exciting terrain, remember that the journey is as rewarding as the destination. Happy customizing!