The ChatGPT Advice That Gets The Best Reaction
There are three words that can help you get more benefit from ChatGPT.
Would you like to know what they are?
Over the last year, I have spent a considerable amount of time working with ChatGPT first and foremost for my own curiosity.
I’ve also been teaching and sharing with my employees, conducting workshops with curious folks, and guiding clients on how to use this amazing instrument to help make our days more effective and efficient.
And during that time, no matter what features we are talking about, or use cases, or what industry or situation or goals folks have for ChatGPT, I have found that there are a few tried and true nuggets of advice that get the best reaction from folks when they hear it for the first time.
So today I thought I would share them with you in hopes that perhaps it will help you too.
Here they are:
- Just Talk To It – I can’t tell you how many times I have been in a presentation and discussing ChatGPT, where I am sharing how I interact with it, and somebody will raise her hand and stop me and say something like the following: “You mean you can just talk to it like a person?”100%. In fact, it works better that way. In fact, it works so well in a conversational manner that I have found significant value in using my microphone to use voice to text on my computer so that I don’t have to type. I do this because I’m much more thorough and detailed when I talk versus when I type. And the more thorough you can be in the more natural you can be as you work with ChatGPT, the better the output is going to be.
- Treat It Like An Intern – Speaking of having a conversation with it, I have found that many who are just starting out with ChatGPT often struggle with the notion that it’s a very valuable problem-solving partner. If we think of ChatGPT as an eager, intern that is here to help make your day better, but it needs background, guidance, and direction to do this, then our approach to the work we do with it can be tremendously beneficial.This is where the ability of the software to understand context is remarkable. By providing ChatGPT with details about your situation or goal, the output you are looking for, and any conditions it should know about, it can help you better.
- Have It Ask You Questions – if you really want to explore the problem-solving partner that ChatGPT can be, have an ask you questions. “It can do that?”Yes, it can do that. And it’s incredibly helpful. Here’s a conversational prompt that can help illustrate how you can bring these three pieces of advice together.
Hey Chat, I need your help. I am looking to create an article for my website to help potential customers for my business get answers to some of the common questions I take on most sales calls. The reason I’m doing this is because I’m really busy, and I want to make sure that my sales team is spending time wisely most customers are interested in getting information without talking to a salesperson anyway, so this will help them and us tremendously. My business sells backyard fencing, and I want to create an article that helps people understand the basics of what might work for them. I need the article to answer, basic questions like what kind of fence do I need, what the price ranges for typical fences for a house, how long does the process take, how long do fences last, and stuff like that. Can you help me create an outline for this article by asking me one question at a time so that I can get the answers out of my head and organize my thoughts for an article that would be most useful for customers?
In the conversation that I shared above, you can see the three pieces of advice working together.
First, you can see that I’m just talking to it. I am being natural and conversational, which is how we talk to other people daily.
Second, you can see that I gave it some details and some background as I would an intern I was asking to help me. I do this because I want to have a ChatGPT to understand the context of the work that I want to do with it. When I help it understand the context, it can take on the role of being an on-purpose, problem-solving partner.
Finally, you can see that I wanted it to ask me questions, so I asked her to help that way. But importantly, you’ll notice that I asked to ask one question at a time. I do this because I want to focus on one question at a time. This will help both you and ChatGPT better focus on the information needed.
The Three Words I Promised To Share
So I opened this article by saying there are three words that can help you get benefits.
So what are they?
Those three words are “tell me more“.
Here is an exercise that I use with groups to help them understand why these three words are effective.
Right now, while you are reading this, I would like you to raise your hand.
Go ahead, literally raise your hand.
Have it up?
Good.
Now, raise it higher.
My question for groups when I do this exercise is how come, you didn’t raise it that high to begin with.
The answer I get is usually something around conserving energy or you didn’t tell me how high to raise it.
ChatGPT works in the exact same way.
Whenever I get results from ChatGPT, and I want to get deeper into a topic or get more information from it, I simply say, “tell me more.”
Here’s a quick for instance that you can use with ChatGPT to see what I mean.
Paste the following prompt into ChatGPT:
I have a doggy daycare business. I’d like to get more customers. One of the ways I’m going to use to do that is to improve the wording on my website. Can you please provide me in a bulleted list form who the best-fit customers would be for a doggy daycare business so I can better understand what I need to put on my website to attract them?
You’ll most likely get a list of the types of people that ChatGPT thinks would be best fit for your business.
Once it gives you that list, pick one and ask it to “tell me more” about that option and see what kind of expanded detail you get back.
I’ve used this particular exercise many times to help clients better understand who they should be talking to with their messaging.
Hope this helps!
-Cary