AI Is Your 1st Hire: Build Without A Team

As a new founder there's a point where the "I'm starting a business!" adrenaline energy begins to fade, and the Chief Everything Officer stage gets real old and exhausting.

But you've got 1 major problem:

You're not ready to hire or you aren't sure how to hire your 1st team member.

So, you start thinking about people in your network that could potentially be a good fit.

Until that entrepreneur wisdom hits and brings on a bout of analysis paralysis causing you to get stuck. You keep hearing in your sleep,

"The 1st hire sets the culture of your company."

"Choose A players, they're the difference between a succesful business and a failing one"

Then you look at your hiring budget ...wah wah😩.

Lucky for you (and I), we're living iun the age of AI [🎊confetti everywhere].

Let's take a few hats of your head (using AI) so you can actually begin to act like a CEO.

Here are 7 ways that AI has completely changed the game for me and some pitfalls to avoid that people don't really talk about:

AI As Your Team Of A-Players

All the knowledge that has ever existed is technically known by your AI. It's smarter than your Ivy League graduate.

⚠️ As great as this sounds, if you use it like your bestie who knows everything about everything, it can quickly become a source of general knowledge. Which isn't what we're after as small business owners with a team of A+ players

So, here's how to get AI performing at its peak for your small business:

Give It A Singular Role.

Copywriter. Business Strategist. Podcast Producer. Research Analyst. The areas where you need help with some heavy lifting in your business. This way, when you prompt your AI for information, it's not sifting through all the information out there, but specific information and targeted insights.

The more specific, the better the conversation you can have with your AI team member.

Feed it context.

For your type of business, with the target audience that you have, and the offers that you sell, and the unique giftings that you posesss. The job of the AI is to work in your business, so provide it all the information it needs to do that well.

Treat this process like onboarding a new hire because that's what you're doing.

Provide Clear Instructions

Tell it exactly what you want it to do. As opposed to saying, "I want to write a post about xyz", Say "Create a post about xyz that is structured for LinkedIn with a hook, story, CTA flow that leads the target reader to take this action. Provide me with 3 alternatives based on platfrom specifc best practices."

You're the CEO providing the direction and it's providing the best application options as your A+ team member.

Create A Strategic Advantage

Use your AI to do what A players are paid to do, find what's not working in the business and spot time wasters and opportunities. The best of the best are paid for their ability to be analytical and solve problems.

Prompt your AI to:

• "find the gaps in your strategy."

• "identify why this offer isn't converting."

• "apply marketing psychology to this message."

We're not trying to hire yes men here... in this case, yes GPTs here 😁!

Use AI For Research

AI is great at taking large amoutns of information and finding the gold. Sounds like you've not got a 'person' for R&D (chuckles). Use it to conduct research on your industry. competitors, changes in the buyer.

⚠️Ask it use reputable sources. And then don't skip this step, verify when the findings are something you will take action on.

This rolls into the next tip.

AI Can Feel Like A Bad Hire

AI is often wrong whether that's a combination of the technology still advancing, or a misinterpretation of the prompt request, or not having a clear and specific task description ...it could be all or more.

Do these 3 things often:

1. Remind it of the context.

2. Instead of jumping from topic to topic, stick to one thing per chat.

3. Aways ask for reputable sources, then verify.

Don't browse, read the output. Which leads to the next big one.

Use AI To Amplify, Not Be You

A lot of small business owners are using AI to write their copy which is great, because that saves time, but it's terrible when everyone is posting the exact same thing.🚫No bueno!

People now have sense for identifying AI responses, which isn't helping your brand building if you're 100% AI copy.

On the upside, there's a big opportunity to differentiate if you write your own copy and then use AI to:

1. correct flow,

2. ensure clarity,

3. and use modern structure while maintaining your original language a.k.a your voice, the way your speak.

⚠️ Here's a quick and basic tip to use with your copy: Read it out loud before pressing publish. Be mindful that AI has a way of creating rhythmic sounding sentences that can sound good but make no sense at all.

BONUS Tip: If you're like me and love learning, instead of AI creating speed and efficiency, it can become a rabbit hole for endless knowledge dives and more procrastination.

You've experienced this, the GPT keeps asking if you want more and more and more... and it all sounds SO good. I'm sitting there thinking, oh yes I definitely want to know that... BUT, NO! We don't need to know everything in one screen session.

As entrepreneurs, CEOs in training we simply need 'enough information' to make an informed decision. Prompt your GPT for a bias towards execution.

Execution = Results 🚫 Endless Thinking

Build your core AI team

Create a core team using this simple process. Let this free up your mental space to take on the role of being a business owner.

Rather than keeping all these ideas, tactics, strategies, SOPs in your head share them with your AI team. The more you work with your AI the better it gets at learning what your expectation is.

⚠️ Pro tip: If you update a process, prompt your GPT to create an SOP as a pdf file so you can update your files. I always think, what if something happened to my account, I would want to have those documents.

AI is an incredible opportunity for solopreneurs and small business owners. It creates speed an efficiency allowing you to have an overview of how your business is running and spot opportunities for improvement.

I have a hypothesis about AI use: it's not going to replace founders who have the knowledge to ask the right questions.

AI doesn't mean you don't need to know anything, infact I think it's the opposite.

To use AI at a high-level you need to know what you're talking about so you can get the most out of it.

Use the time that you save with using AI, to increase your knowlege around what you do. Then use AI to take you to stratospheric levels of applying that information.

As technology changes, the principles of life and business will remain the same.

"Do you see a man skilled in his work?

He will stand in the presence of kings.

He will not stand in the presence of unknown men." (Proverbs 22:29)

Identify where the real value in your industry lies, and use AI to go deeper into mastery in that niche. Don't use it to escape from work.

Use it to amplify.

Blessings!

Business Communications Strategist

Founder-led Media

P.S. Before you let AI take over your brand voice, discover your Founder Voice with this quick 3-minute quiz.

P.S.S. If this message around faith, mastery, and business stirred something in you, consider this a personal invitation to become a founding member of The Founder’s Mastermind, a book club and growth circle designed for Christian entrepreneurs who want to grow deeper, lead stronger, and build smarter together. Learn more here