S1. Ep38 - How to Create Custom GPTs for Your Business

Katie: Welcome to the AI Automations for Business Podcasts. We're your hosts, Katie and Null, and we'll be discussing how you can use AI for your business along with the latest news, updates and automations to help you stay ahead of the curve, allowing you to grow and scale your business more efficiently. Please be sure to subscribe and I hope you enjoy this episode. Hello and welcome back to another episode. Hi, hello. I'm Katie and And as always, I've got Noel here with me. Hi, Noel.

Noel: Hello. Good to be here. I'm looking forward to diving into today's topic.

Katie: I thought you might be. So today we are talking all about custom GPTs, what they are, why they matter for business owners. And like, I feel, Noel, you've been playing around with custom GPs for quite some time. I feel like you must because I feel like I've known about them first. quite a long time. So you've obviously been in my ear talking about them.

Noel: Yeah, I started building them as soon as they released them, which was the end of 2023. So it's been a while. I've created quite a few along the during that time.

Katie: Yeah, it's been a couple of years.

Noel: Yeah. Yeah, it has been, yeah.

Katie: Yeah. Okay. So like I said, I feel quite excited about this because I feel like there is so much untapped potential for business owners with a custom GPT?

Noel: Yes, definitely, yeah. Yeah, you can, it makes it a lot easier. So yes, you could automate with tools, whereas I think with this is really beginner friendly.

Katie: Nice and easy to. Let's just start, like, from the very beginning. So someone might be listening to this and being like, what even is a custom GPT? So, Noel, can you break it down for us really simply? What is a custom GPT?

Noel: So what occurs from GPT is it's a way in which you can train. Basically, you're training your own little agent and you can train it on anything that you wish. So it could be for any use case. You can give it specific instructions and then say, well, look, you know, I need, you know, this particular output every single time. You know, so you can train it on your documents. You can get it to do web searches. You can do it to create images. There's all kinds of different things you can do. So it's kind of like a real cheat sheet to get to the end goal on Chuck GBT. So if you have something really specific, then your custom GPDs are the way ahead.

Katie: Yeah, I feel like custom GPD almost acts like another version of you or even like a digital team member. and what I love is that you can actually do this without coding, because I know there are a couple of different ways that you can do it.

Noel: Yes, there are two ways to do it. So first of all, to get access to custom GPTs, you do need a paid TrachyPT account. So you don't need to be on the Super Duper $200. As long as you're on the, I think it's the core plan for $20. As long as you're on there, you should all be good to go. But yeah, to create one, they've got like a GPT explore area and then right in the top right end corner of that page is a little crate button and once you're in there there's two options to build them so you could chat to technically chat GPT to help you create the custom GPT you want so you can just you know type it all out in plain language and describe what you want this GPT to do or you could go a bit deeper and then there's a configure tab where you can go through and you can define the system prompt. You can add all the files that you need access to. You can, you know, add and remove different services. So if you don't want it going off and searching the web, you can, you know, untick that option. And there's all kinds of things. You can link it into APIs and it gets very technical and that's on the configure tab.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: But you can still, you know, you can switch between the two. So let's say you start creating one in plain language and you're like, well, I'm not quite sure this is 100% right. You can then go into the configure tab and then see what it's done and then make those edits as well. So yeah, yeah, really easy to get started.

Katie: Okay. So like why, why do people like want to create one? Maybe someone's still on the fence and they're like, Why go through this effort of, like, creating one? So, for me, I feel like it saves a lot of time. Definitely.

Noel: Loads and loads of time. So if you're, if like every week or every day, you're asking Chat ChbT to do something for you, whether it be creating content or answering certain questions. And every single time you're like, well, this isn't giving me this a consistent output because every time you could ask the same question six times and get six different answers but if you're running into that sort of issue then maybe a custom gbt is the way forward because you know you can go in there and say well look this is the output format that I want you know this is an example of something good that I want to receive back and then it goes sure okay well what you know and you can just go off and ask those custom GBT's those questions and you get it I'd say 90% right every time.

Katie: Let's not go with

Noel: 100%.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: It can go a strong.

Katie: I would say the consistency is definitely all over the place if you're just using chat GPT. Whereas I feel like the consistency if you're using a custom GPT is a lot higher.

Noel: Oh, way, way higher. Yeah. It really gets into those instructions. So if you've really embedded that with, the prompt within the GPT, then, yeah, you're just going to get it in that structure every time. Yeah. Honestly, it works two ways. Or you could have it so it's less structured if that's the way you want to roll, you know, that's fine. But it's still got access to the information that you've given it as well. So, you know, it's still accurate and gives you, gives you what you need.

Katie: Yeah, you're not having to put in that same information every time you're using chat GPT.

Noel: Exactly, yeah. yeah it'd be like here's my PDF that's about my brand voice you know yeah and there you go now create me the content whereas if you create a gbt that has that document embedded in it you can just go to it and say create me the content about you know whatever you want to talk about and it will go off and use that document to create it things like that so yeah yeah and

Katie: i know from the work that we've done for other people it improves client experience as well.

Noel: Definitely, yeah. Yeah, you can give them, I mean, you know, I guess for some clients, you know, you could give them access to information that's maybe like FAQs and things like that, you know, so they can get instant support from a custom GPT instead of, you know, sat around waiting for you to answer an email or, you know, or maybe not getting the answer they need from your chatbot on the website or whatever, you know.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: And just get that information straight away. Yeah.

Katie: They're really helpful. Well, they're kind of, like, not sat there waiting for you to come online in, like, maybe like a membership area, you know. Yeah. Because I know, like, we'll probably talk about this in a moment. I mean, let's go into it right now, I guess. But, for example, like, Noel has. built before chatbots for memberships. So if a member has a question or doesn't know where to find something with, you know, within the membership area, Noel built this chatbot that was actually quite fun and people could just put their question or, you know, what they needed help with into this chatbot. and it would come back and find the answer.

Noel: Absolutely, yeah. I had a real fun persona. So that's also something you can bake into your custom GBT's. So if you don't like the same boring, you know, AHI response, you can add that in there as well. So, you know, it makes a bit more fun and interactive. But yeah, for that chatbot, I also created a custom GPT. so when we was interacting with people in comments and things out in the community feed, we could interact with them and use that same persona. So we could put their comment or post into the custom GBT and it would come back with a response using that exact same persona that they would get from the chatbot within the platform. So yeah,

Katie: that was quite fun. I think this is great as well because obviously I've done community management for a couple of different memberships. And even though people know you aren't the person who runs the business, you know, they've joined because they like the tone and the vibe of that person. So you have to be very careful, like how you are responding to members. So very often you get trained in their tone of voice. So, you know, replying to any customer support. emails or replying to any questions, comments in the community, you have to be kind of like, you know, is this how they would respond? So this like custom, you know, chatbot that you built allowed that to happen with, you know, without then having to spend time training members or staff and, you know, the worst thing as well is when you have like a really great member of staff and for whatever reason you know they they leave you then have to like start all over again and people have to you know know the knowledge of the membership and understand the tone of voice and things like that all over again

Noel: yeah exactly that that's a hard bit but with with this so you could share that gbt with the entire team so you've got your company voice is in that GBT, you can share that with everyone, and everyone gets the same outputs, which is, you know, that's going to be far better than, you know, 10 people firing up 10 instances of chat GBT asking questions differently and then hoping

Katie: they're going to

Noel: get a similar answer. Yeah, that's not really going to happen.

Katie: Yeah. So let's go into some, like, while we're here talking about it, let's go into like some other real use case studies for like business owners. with custom GPDs. So something that I have used myself is like a course curriculum builder. So, you know, you can create your GPD to kind of like just help you map out a course. So you can like tell it like, I want to create a course on this subject. It's going to be, I don't know, six weeks long. or it needs to have at least two hours with the training. Can you, like, build me the curriculum? And then I think sometimes when you've just got, like, the bones of the course, as it were, like the outline, I feel like then it's so much easier to go and write the course yourself. So you're not asking, you know, Chachapy to write your whole course for you. You're just asking for, like, an outline to kind of. would get you started.

Noel: Yeah. Yeah, I've done similar things myself for the courses I've created. Because it's one thing having the idea about what you're going to train people on. But then, yeah, for me, it's quite another thing to figure out, well, which sections does it logically make sense to train this in? You know,

Katie: how should I break all this information down?

Noel: Yeah,

Katie: that's the thing. Like, when you've got so much knowledge in one particular topic, it's kind of like, well, Well, yeah, sometimes it's really hard to go, like, right, well, how do I just, you know, instead of making this, you know, a three-year course, how can I just, you know, zone in and concentrate on one bit so it's only like an hour or two hours? And also, I think as well, like you were saying, it's really good because it will help you put things in like a logical order. whereas in the past before I've gone to create courses and I've gone right well I want them to learn this and I'm like but actually in order them to know this you know there's a bit that needs to come before that and now actually does the order makes sense so even something like that can save you a lot of time and I think as well it takes away that like writers block as well doesn't it?

Noel: It does yeah Yeah, it's definitely helped me a hell of a lot. But once you've created that output, so let's say, you know, the first time you run it, your curriculum might come out slightly different, maybe not in the right sort of way, and then, you know, you might give it another go and be perfect. Well, you could then copy that perfect one back into the custom GPT and they say, well, look, this is a really good one. And then the next time you go to create a course, it'll be in that exact layout, you know, and follow that same form. So all of your training that you do follows that same consistent style as well. So yeah, yeah, really powerful. Yeah.

Katie: So you can even have like custom GPTs that, you know, you can give them like team or like job roles, can't you.

Noel: Yeah. Yeah, it's really quite fun because you could give, you could basically create like a job specification. I mean, you would get chat of BT to create that or find one online. for like a specific role, say if you want like a chief technical officer, you know, for your business, you know, you could pre-program a custom GPT that will act as your CTO so you can ask it all kinds of questions, you know, and have that back and forth like you would do with with a normal employee, you know. So it's like a solopreneur, you know, you kind of got to wear all of those different hats, whereas now you can put those hats into a custom GPT. and then just sit there chatting to them all, which is a really quite cool use case for them.

Katie: And then also you

Noel: can give them a fun persona as well. They don't have to be boring, you know. They could have a bit of flair and style in there.

Katie: Yeah, like you could almost like you can give them like celebrity personalities as well, can't you?

Noel: Yes. Yeah, I once created an agent on the persona of Ron Burgundy from the Anchorman films. That was. How was that?

Katie: working with that sort of personality.

Noel: It's actually quite good. It was brilliant. Yeah, it was really fun, yeah. In the end, yeah, you didn't really get any work done. But, yeah,

Katie: yeah. Yeah, so probably not the best person to face it on. Yeah, fun, but it's too fun. Yeah, but it goes to show, like, if you've got a favorite celebrity or film star, yeah. I would quite like to see what Reese Witherspoon would come out. like.

Noel: Yeah. Oh yeah. Definitely, that'd be good one.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: Or who was? They were like a Ryan Reynolds giving you no nonsense advice. That'd be quite.

Katie: Yeah. Well, I was thinking like Hustin Wig or Amy Poehler, Tina Faye. Like they're all obviously really funny comedians that do a lot for like SNL. So I just feel like, yeah, but then maybe it goes back to like the Ron Bergen do, like, how much work are you actually going to get done?

Noel: Exactly, yeah.

Katie: I think you need to be careful when she's in the personality for your custom GPDs. Yeah,

Noel: we were sat down having a virtual scotch and clinking glasses at one point. I thought, that was the point I thought this has gone a bit too far. Yeah.

Katie: Maybe.

Noel: Yeah.

Katie: But, no, you've also created some custom. GPDs inside of AI Business Club, where you're guiding members through, won't you step by step to build brand voice, ideal client, and you've also got a make.com assistant in that. Do you want to just tell us a little bit more about those ones that you've created?

Noel: Yeah. So with the brand voice, that's quite an easy one, actually. When our members use that GPT, all they need to do is, like, input some text examples of their content, their written content, obviously written by them, not by AI. So they can put that either as like a document or they could copy, paste it into the chat. And then all they've got to do is hit enter and away it goes and creates a really comprehensive brand voice, which you can then use to, you know, you could then copy, copy that out and then put then into your own custom GPT, you know, which is trained on that information. So it's a bit circular, but it gets you started for creating a brand voice if you've never created one before. So yeah, really, really cool that one is. The other one with the ideal client, you're kind of like describing your business and then what sort of services you want to provide who you're looking to target. And then it goes into quite a bit of detail about these people, you know, not quite down to shoe size, but it's almost to that point, you know, it goes into so much information that it's like, well, you know, this is what they like doing, you know, it gives them like names, ages, locations, you know, all of the interesting stuff that you might want to know to understand your ideal clients and things like that. So all of that information comes out. So, yeah, that again, that's a really simple text prompt to get that started.

Katie: Yeah, and it also goes into like the, um, emotional side as well of your ideal client as well.

Noel: Yes, yeah, what they're struggling with.

Katie: Yeah, what they've tried. Yeah, exactly. Because I feel like that is something that a lot of people actually miss out on, like, as well with their ideal client. And like, I think people forget, like, how much people buy based on emotions. So, yeah, just having that in there, I know, you know, has helped people. poor.

Noel: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The third one is the make.com assistant. So I don't know, I've noticed recently, they seem to have moved their help AI in the builder. They seem to have changed that. So I'm guessing they're getting ready for Mia at some point, which is going to, you know, take that to the next level. But the GPT that I've built is kind of, I would say a mere light. So you could describe to it and say, well, you know, I want to take emails from my Gmail account, and then I want to then have AI that will go through, maybe do like some tasks to say, well, you know, is this like a sales email, is this, you know, categorize it and all that sort of stuff, and then generate responses. And what the assistant does is it goes, right, okay, well, I'm going to go off and find out about make. and then it comes back and then gives you like a step-by-step guide on how to build the automation. So you go, right, well, to start off with, you need the Gmail module. And it will tell you what information to put in and then how to connect it into open AI or whichever AI you want to use. And then it will then be like, right, well, you need to link this data in this field. And it takes you through that step-by-step process. It might not be 100% perfect. it does everything that I've tested so far it's got right and yeah yeah it's been really helpful for some of her members

Katie: that's good um and obviously you had to create one for for make dot com now obviously of

Noel: course it did yeah I had to shoehorn them in the episode somehow didn't I

Katie: so yeah so I think um when you're creating your custom GPD. You have to think like what problems do you want to solve? What tasks do you want it to help you with? Your tone. Give it a personality. It can be your personality. It could be you know something someone unhinged. What information can you upload to train it if that's something that, you know, is required from it? And then don't forget to like test and refine it and tweak if needs to be but yeah like no when when should you be like building a custom GPT

Noel: it's when you're doing stuff repetitively you know at least you know once a week you know like for us you know we've got one that helps us with our podcast so every week I just nip in there with the transcript and then go right now create you know, the ideas for the titles and descriptions and that sort of good stuff in the show notes.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: So that's something we do every single week. So that's something that's, you know, really good to tackle. But yes, whenever you're doing anything specific, or it needs to be repeatable, or you always need something out in the same format. And, you know, you don't really want to go through the pain of describing that output format every single time.

Katie: That can get

Noel: very annoying. Yeah.

Katie: I'm going to add as well to the list, like, when you want to provide like a seamless customer service.

Noel: Yeah.

Katie: I'm going to add that one in. And also, when you want to be able to have more clients or customers, but you don't actually have any more time or you don't want to give any more time. to it.

Noel: Yeah. Or it's even like sharing things within a team. So if you want your team to be using the same, you know, sort of outputs or using the same information, then, you know, having them having a consistent experience as well. So they're really good points for creating a custom GPT. Yeah.

Katie: Yeah. So I think we've given like custom GPTs like good PR here.

Noel: Definitely, yeah.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: And they deserve it. They are really good.

Katie: Really, really good. Yeah, I think they're brilliant.

Noel: Yeah. I mean, Claude released skills the other week. That's kind of edging into this sort of space, but it is slightly different and a bit harder, harder to do. So I think, yeah, GPTs are still leading away when it comes to creating this sort of thing.

Katie: Yeah. And, of course, like, people don't have to figure this out alone. You know, we've created some in AI Business Club. We also guide members, you know, step by step how to build their own. For example, you know, as well, we've done like the ideal client one, the brand voice, make.com assistant as well. So, yeah, if you do want some handholding, creating your own custom GPT, then we can definitely support you with that inside the membership, you know, and we're there to answer any questions and provide you with live help. We don't have a customer service bot in there. It is just Noel and I. Or is it? You're not going to get some unhinged answer from wrong, Burgundy. Yeah, and really it's just an old's custom GPT. Yeah.

Noel: Absolutely. yeah thankfully i don't i don't talk like ron either so yeah yeah

Katie: i think that's a blessing for everyone yeah so we will put the link below um if you want to come and join us or if you've got any questions by ai business club then just reach out to um either of us thanks so much to listening to this week's podcast if you've liked it please leave a review or a thumbs up in the relevant place and we will see you for another episode very soon.