ChatGPT is a powerful language model with countless capabilities. Is it possible to configure it to guide you through your business challenges?
ChatGPT is the most famous tool in this new AI era. It’s a large language model or LLM, which is essentially capable of understanding and mimicking human language. This means it can follow instructions and behave however we prompt it to. This includes training it to adopt the role of a business coach.
Many business owners and entrepreneurs have a coach or mentor. Someone who can guide them through their journey and help them overcome challenges. The reality is, however, business coaching isn’t readily accessible.
Business coaches with a strong track record are in high demand. They’re booked up, often with a waiting list of eager clients. They can be prohibitively expensive for a business owner and you might only be able to speak with them once a month. ChatGPT enables far greater accessibility and flexibility.
ChatGPT is available 24/7. It’s not going to get tired or bored. It’s not going to be offended if you don’t think it’s helping or if you’re in a bad mood. Whilst there are some limitations with ChatGPT as a business coach (which we cover later), it’s worth giving it a shot to see what help or ideas it brings to the table.
In order for ChatGPT to do anything, it has to be prompted. This essentially means telling it how to behave.
A simple prompt you can use is:
“Please take the role of a business coach whilst I explain my business and its challenges.”
This will mean ChatGPT assumes the role of a general business coach with the aim of helping you overcome your business challenges.
However, you might want ChatGPT to act like a particular type of coach or use a certain style. For this to work, you need a more descriptive prompt.
Most business owners know what they want and that’s true for their business coach and the other influences they welcome into their world. A coach with a soft touch won’t motivate someone who needs tough live and straight talk. Likewise, a more sensitive individual may want far gentler guidance with minimal criticism or conflict.
Here’s where ChatGPT really comes into its own as a tool. It is intelligent enough to not only adopt the role of a business coach, but understand high degrees of nuance in tone, style and language. Not only that, but you can provide more details about your business and the kind of challenges you’re facing and it will give you some suggestions immediately.
Try:
“Please assume the role of a business coach and communicate in a [insert desired style, such as ‘motivational’, ‘analytical’, ‘direct’, ‘supportive’, etc.] style. I’m the owner of a [insert industry type] business named [insert business name]. We’ve been in operation for [insert years in operation] and we have [insert number of employees] employees. We operate by [describe how you serve customers]. Lately, we’ve been facing challenges related to [insert specific challenge(s)]. This is impacting our ability to [insert specific area(s) of impact]. We’ve tried to solve this by [insert attempted solution(s)], but it hasn’t been effective because [explain potential reasons why]. Could you provide some strategies and insights on how we can overcome this, with the goal of [your overall goal]?”
Whilst you’ll almost certainly benefit to some degree from your newfound business ally, there are some drawbacks to using ChatGPT.
Of course, ChatGPT is a computer programme, not a human. It has no actual business experience and is taking information from millions of sources. Not being human, it doesn’t (yet!) truly empathise with the rollercoaster of emotions that entrepreneurship brings. It’s also not vested in your success.
ChatGPT has a generalist world view; philosophies drawn from all that information it has access to. This means its default attitude towards business, risk, morality and success are a kind of average of society. You might not want your business guidance to be based on the average person.
ChatGPT is not a proactive business coach. It won’t reach out each week to see how you’re progressing and to book in your next coaching call. This means it’s on you to visit the platform and share your news, feelings and challenges.
ChatGPT doesn’t provide real accountability. So what if you don’t do what you told ChatGPT to do? It’s not going to call you out on it. It’s not going to think less of you. On the flip side, it’s not going to be proud of you if you did something well. Whilst this can be a positive, if you’re someone that really needs accountability, ChatGPT might not work for you.
Maybe you’re not sold on the ChatGPT dream. Maybe you’ve tried it and it’s not what you need. Here are your top alternatives.
Real life coach: The most obvious alternative to an AI coach is a real-life business coach. Old school, right? But you just might be the kind of person who needs that human understanding and interaction. If you don’t fully trust or believe what ChatGPT is telling you, it’s not going to help.
AI-assisted coach: This could be the best of both worlds. Find a coach who is using AI to provide a better service to more people. Smart coaches can increase their output and improve their analysis and recommendations using AI. AI-assisted coaching has the potential to draw benefits from the human-side of coaching (empathy, experience, etc.) as well as the super-human intellect and processing power of AI.
A Coachvox AI coach: Coaches and successful entrepreneurs use Coachvox AI to train their own AI model with their content. This means you’re using an AI coach that is based on a real person, with real experience and a world-view, instead of generic recommendations based on aggregate data. Choose an individual who you’d love to coach you and see where their AI takes you.
Consumer coaching app: There are AI coaching apps available for every kind of business or life challenge imaginable. Remember that many of these products have been created recently following the AI hype and finding an effective solution with longevity can be challenging. The majority of these apps are also built on top of ChatGPT so you’ll still be getting help from the tool we’ve been touting all along.
So you might be wondering if better results are to be had from using ChatGPT’s Custom GPTs. Custom GPTs have been prompted in a simple way to behave like a specific person, brand or expert such as a coach or advisor. However, having tested multiple custom GPTs, it appears none are superior to the basic ChatGPT if you’re seeking a business or life coach.
In fact, creators looking to create their own AI-powered chatbot are using Coachvox AI as an alternative to Custom GPTs due to better accuracy, performance and other benefits.
ChatGPT can be a powerful business coach if prompted correctly. It will ask open-ended questions, helping you find answers from within. If you need gentle, fairly generic guidance and very little accountability, it might be for you. If you’re looking for a more tailored solution, consider exploring one of the other options available.
