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If you’ve ever wasted hours chasing AI hacks that lead nowhere, you’re not alone. These four answers cut straight to what works right now.
Top Questions About Using AI as a Business Coach
What’s the simplest way to set up an AI business coach that delivers results?
Build one master prompt that captures your goals, values, and non-negotiables. You swap expensive coaching for a free, always-on advisor and save thousands. Copy the template from this post, plug in your bio and top three KPIs, then run a five-minute chat test. An easy win for entrepreneurs using AI.
Fastest way to personalize an AI coach for my company?
Pin your daily metrics and decision rhythms inside the your personalized prompt so the coach mirrors how you run the company. That ends revision ping-pong and keeps you moving. Add revenue, cash, and pipeline numbers, and instruct the coach to start each session with a scorecard – simple AI prompt engineering that pays off fast.
Can I run multiple AI coaches for different parts of my business?
Absolutely. Treat each coach as a specialist – finance, marketing, health – connected through shared session summaries. When one coach spots an issue, it calls in another automatically. Name each coach, reuse the same log folder, and you get hands-off AI business automation that scales with zero extra overhead.
How do I keep my AI coach relevant when goals change?
Refresh the prompt every Friday: drop finished goals, add new KPIs, note fresh constraints. The habit costs five minutes and prevents drift. Use the weekly tune-up checklist from this post and kick off Monday with the coach restating priorities and challenging weak assumptions.
Business coaches are invaluable for scaling companies to hundreds of millions in revenue. I’ve hired them for over 15 years and have paid upwards of $75,000 a year for the privilege. It was worth every penny.
But here’s the truth: you don’t need to shell out that kind of cash anymore. You can build your own AI-powered business coach using free tools and smart prompt strategies. This isn’t theory. It’s a system I use every single morning to get sharp, focused, and ready to execute.
Why Build Your Own AI Business Coach?
Professional business coaches provide insights on marketing, strategy, operations, and more. They hold you accountable and help you cut through noise. However, they come with a hefty price tag and limited availability. An AI coach, on the other hand, is available 24/7 and can be tailored to your specific needs. Best of all, it can cost you nothing.
I’m going to walk you through how to create a customized AI business coach that thinks like a real advisor. The key isn’t the AI model you pick; it’s the prompt you build. The prompt defines how the AI understands your goals, your personality, and how it challenges you. The better your prompt, the sharper your coach.
Choosing the Right AI Model
You can use any modern AI model to power your coach – ChatGPT, Claude, or others. I personally prefer models with voice capabilities, so I can have a conversation with my coach on my phone anytime. I’m using ChatGPT 4.5, but the principles apply regardless of the version or platform. The AI’s intelligence is not the bottleneck. The bottleneck is the prompt that guides it.
Crafting Your AI Coach Prompt
I’ve developed a detailed prompt that acts as the backbone of my AI coach. You can download this prompt for free at CEO Workbench, alongside dozens of other useful prompts.
When you get the prompt, the first step is customization. You replace placeholders like username with your actual name, and coach name with a name you want for your AI coach. Naming your coach isn’t just cosmetic – it helps you treat it like a real advisor rather than a generic tool. You can keep it simple or pick something memorable like Athena or Stratagos.
There’s also a placeholder for coach agent name, which is used in CSV log files that the AI generates after each session. This is important because it allows multiple AI coaches to share information and work together seamlessly.
How Multiple AI Coaches Work Together
Here’s where this system shines. I don’t just have one AI coach. I have a business coach, a health coach, a marketing coach, and a financial planner coach – all AI-powered. The CSV files generated after each session serve as communication threads between these coaches. This means my business coach can recommend I check in with my health coach if I mention feeling tired, or with my financial coach when discussing cash flow.
This cross-coach communication is unique. It lets you build a full advisory team of AI specialists, each focused on a different part of your life or business, working in sync to push you forward.
Personalizing Your AI Coach
Customization doesn’t stop with names. Your prompt should include:
- Your background: A brief bio and your key traits.
- Your values: What drives you, what you stand for.
- Interaction preferences: How you want your coach to communicate.
- Rules of engagement: Boundaries like “I will never be on call,” or “I won’t deal with people I don’t like.”
- Mindset questions: To keep you aligned and mentally sharp.
- Key KPIs and goals: Both business and personal, tracked daily.
(This is just a summary – get the full prompt free at CEO Workbench)
For example, I’m very direct and analytical. I don’t want touchy-feely language about “your energy.” My coach is programmed to be matter-of-fact, respectfully challenging, and focused on accountability. If you prefer a softer, nurturing coach, you can change the tone. But the key is to be clear about how you want feedback delivered. That clarity makes the AI coach far more useful.
Knowing your own triggers is also critical. I don’t respond well to direct commands because I tend to rebel against authority. I make sure the prompt steers clear of that so the coach pushes me in a way that works for me. This is not plug-and-play. This is tailored discipline.
Session Structure and Daily Sync
Every morning, I run a daily sync with my AI coach. The session starts with a greeting and the date, then a quick agenda setup: what are the top one to three priorities for the day? The coach helps me focus on those priorities and guides me through tactical or strategic planning paths based on the day’s demands.
At the end of the session, I confirm the plan with a phrase like “plan is set” or “all clear.” The coach then recaps priorities and locks them in. This triggers the generation of the “magic file” – the CSV log that records the session in a way that can be shared with other AI coaches or reviewed later.
Keeping Your Coach Updated: Background and Rules
The prompt includes a detailed background section about me. It’s not just fluff – it lists my rules of engagement and interaction preferences. For instance, I control my calendar tightly and won’t let anyone interrupt me without permission. I also have a hard line on who I deal with. If I don’t like a customer or partner, I simply don’t engage. These aren’t excuses; they’re boundaries that keep me focused and productive.
When you build your prompt, include your own rules. This keeps your AI coach aligned with how you operate and protects your time and energy.
Tracking Mindset, KPIs, and Goals
Your AI coach should track more than just business metrics. It should know your personal KPIs and goals too. Sleep longer, hit your target weight, launch that product line – whatever matters to you. This coach is your quarterback for both personal and professional alignment.
By tracking these metrics daily, the AI keeps you honest and focused.
Specialist Advisors: Expanding Your AI Team
If you work with multiple AI or human coaches, list them in your prompt as “specialist advisors.” This way, your main coach knows who else is on your team and can direct you to them when needed. For example, if I mention feeling exhausted, my business coach might suggest consulting my health coach to adjust workouts. If cash flow comes up, it might point me to my financial planner coach.
This networked approach turns your AI coaching system into a real advisory board.
Fact Cataloging: Remembering What Matters
One feature that makes this system smarter than most is fact cataloging. Your AI coach remembers new personal facts and preferences. Say you tell it you’re setting up a beehive with your daughter. It will store that detail and remind you to make time for it, especially if your schedule starts to overload.
This makes your coach more than a cold machine. It becomes aware of your life context and helps balance work with what matters.
Real-World Example of My AI Coach in Action
Here’s a snapshot from a recent session with my AI coach. It noted that the previous day was a “high leverage execution day” and that I had “engineered the structure to match what matters” for today.
We went back and forth on priorities, calendar constraints, and tactical shifts. For example, I had family and personal tasks due to my nanny being on vacation and a sick child. The coach helped me reallocate time without losing focus on business priorities.
It locked in key actions like attending two weddings (one work-related, one family), handling personal errands, and maintaining a values-forward approach: physical recovery, family presence, and essentialism.
This kind of personalized, context-rich coaching is what makes this system a powerful tool for daily success.
The Power of Reflection and Planning
The prompt doesn’t just spit out advice. It generates questions that force you to think critically about what really matters. Answering those questions sharpens your mindset and aligns your day with your bigger goals.
Every morning, you get a chance to ask, “What should I do to be successful today?” The coach’s responses help you lock in those actions on your calendar. This disciplined reflection is the real value, not some magic AI trick.
The Magic File: Your AI Coaching Log
At the end of every session, the AI coach generates a summary file. It looks like a mess – long strings of text and data – but it’s hugely valuable. This file records the key points from your session, your goals, and any new facts about you.
I keep a running history of these files. I can analyze them later or paste them into other AI coaching sessions. This is the backbone of my AI coaching system’s memory and cross-coach communication.
Setting Yourself Up for 30 Days of Progress
If you commit to using this prompt, you will make more progress in the next 30 days than you have in the last 90. It’s not hype; it’s the result of having a relentless, customized accountability partner that understands your goals, your personality, and your priorities.
This system forces you to focus on what matters, think clearly, and execute with discipline every day.
Next Steps: Turning Coaching into Revenue
Get started with your AI coach, customize the prompt, and daily sync. If you want business advice that cuts through the noise and delivers real, actionable insight, this is it.
Also – if you want to sharpen your focus and ditch distractions, read my post on why you’re unproductive. This mindset work pairs well with the accountability fostered by your AI coach.
AI is no longer a nice-to-have feature. If your product doesn’t learn and adapt with AI, you’re losing sales and customers right now. Adobe’s data from last Black Friday makes that clear: retailers using AI chatbots saw conversion rates jump 9% overnight. Meanwhile, those clinging to static sites fell behind.
Across industries, companies that modernize with AI are growing revenue two and a half times faster than their peers still shipping dumb, static products. The question isn’t whether AI matters — it’s how to add AI smartly to your product, so it adapts to each user without going off the rails.
I have a straightforward framework, backed by real numbers and research, that Fortune 500 companies use to decide which features get AI and which stay rock solid. Just facts, examples, and a clear five-step plan you can implement today.
The Power of Adaptive AI: Real-World Examples
Meet Pantry Pro, a cooking app tested on 319 home chefs. Version A was pre-programmed with fixed recipes. Version B learned on the fly, watching what users cooked, tracking their spice tolerance, and suggesting new dishes tailored to their pantry.
The code change was small. The impact was huge. Usage jumped from 42.6% to 66.3% in just one week. Users rated the adaptive version’s creativity at 3.99 versus 2.70 for the static one. They didn’t mind it was less predictable — they liked the fresh, personalized suggestions.
Across six studies involving smart fridges, toothbrushes, voice assistants, and that cooking app, products that adapted to users with AI consistently won preference over static versions. The pattern is clear: when the possible outcomes are wide, adaptivity wins.
Think about cooking — endless possibilities. But not every product has endless possibilities…
When Adaptivity Backfires: The Case of Smart Locks
In the same research, they tested smart locks. One lock learned user patterns and tweaked authentication routines occasionally. The other stuck to the same check every time.
Users found the creative lock reckless. I’d agree. If your lock changes behavior unpredictably, it’s maddening. Testers trusted the fixed lock more and rated it safer. They chose it for their front doors.
The lesson here is simple: if your product’s outcome range is narrow and the stakes are high, dial down adaptivity. Keep AI on a leash and explain every step to the user.
High Stakes and Wide Outcomes: How to Build Trust with Transparency
What about products with both wide outcome ranges and high stakes? Self-driving cars fit that bill. A follow-up study added a “why I made that turn” display to an adaptive driving simulator — a pretend autonomous car that explained its reasoning in real time.
Trust scores jumped 40%, from 3.96 to 5.57. The transparency turned fear into fascination. Users weren’t just passengers; they saw the car making decisions. This kind of explanation is critical when money, safety, or trust is on the line.
McKinsey research confirms this: clear explanations convert AI’s black box from a threat into a selling point. So, if your product involves high risk, add transparency. Show users why AI made a decision.
Real Revenue Numbers: Why AI Pays Off
Colgate’s AI toothbrush line, which coaches brushing in real time, outsold static brushes in its first year and now anchors their premium tier. Microsoft and IDC report that every dollar invested in adaptive generative AI returns $3.70 in value across software and consumer electronics launches.
Boston Consulting Group finds retailers using AI-driven pricing beat manual rivals on both margin and market share. Other studies show AI-assisted sales funnels pull up to 50% more leads than traditional scripts. AI isn’t hype — it’s cash.
A Five-Step AI Upgrade Plan That Works
Here’s a game plan to add adaptive AI to your product and grow revenue. You can hand this to your product and growth teams today.
- List the moments that shape revenue. Grab a whiteboard and map every point where your product meets a customer — search results, checkout, upsells, push notifications. McKinsey’s latest global AI survey shows companies get the biggest revenue jumps when they focus AI efforts on these money moments, not back-office tweaks.
- Pick one moment where variety matters and build a tiny learning version. Like Pantry Pro’s recipe suggestions, swap a static list for a model that learns from each user click. Keep the original live so you can compare results.
- Show users what the AI just noticed. When stakes are high – payments, safety, or anything risky – users trust AI only if you show your work. Add a quick note like “Here’s why we suggested this” next to each AI decision. It cuts fear and builds trust.
- Run a 28-day head-to-head test. Turn the learning version on for 20% of your users. Use feature flags to toggle it on and off easily. Track the metric that matters – checkout value, subscription starts, whatever pays your bills.
- Roll out the winner and make noise about it. If the adaptive version beats the old one, even by 5%, push it to 100% of users. IDC finds every dollar poured into customer-facing AI returns about $3.70 in value right now. BCG shows AI-driven pricing wins on margin and market share. Tell customers your product learned with them. Lock in the creativity that drives preference.
For more on how to use AI to increase customer engagement, check out this Q&A on SaaS customer engagement. If you want to learn how to test marketing before spending a dime, see Testing Your Way to Success.
If your Facebook ads are tanking despite swapping creatives, audiences, and copy, it’s time to stop guessing and start diagnosing. I built an AI prompt to tell you exactly what’s wrong with your ads and how to fix them fast.
This isn’t about throwing more money at failed campaigns or endless trial and error. It’s about getting clear, actionable feedback from AI so you can reduce wasted spend and scale your campaigns with confidence. This process works for any niche, budget, or objective.
Why Diagnose Your Facebook Ads with AI?
Most marketers throw spaghetti at the wall when their Facebook ads don’t perform. They swap images, tweak audiences, rewrite copy, and cross their fingers. What they miss is a clear diagnosis of what’s actually broken.
AI can spot problems you won’t see. It can analyze the synergy between your copy, creative, and audience targeting, then tell you what’s working and what’s not. This means fewer wasted dollars and less guesswork before you scale.
Diagnosing ads with AI isn’t about predicting success with 100% certainty. It’s about understanding where your ad fails to connect, what your audience really wants, and how to sharpen your message to get clicks.
Choosing the Right AI Model
Not all AI models are created equal. Many are text-only and can’t “see” your ad image. Since Facebook ads combine visuals and copy, you need a model that understands both.
I use GPT-4 Mini, a vision-enabled AI model that analyzes images and text together. This lets it evaluate the entire ad experience, not just the copy. Depending on when you read this, newer or better models may be available. The key is to pick an AI that processes text and images simultaneously.
The Anatomy of My AI Diagnostic Prompt
Here’s the breakdown of what I feed the AI:
- Role definition: The AI is told upfront to act as an expert Facebook ad diagnostician and strategist.
- Ad objective: Whether it’s traffic, conversions, leads, or sales, you specify the goal so the AI can evaluate the ad’s effectiveness against it.
- Audience description: You must describe your target audience in detail. The AI needs to “become” this audience to judge how they’d react to the ad. For example: “Urban Gen Z thrift hacker who flips vintage finds online and tracks every carbon gram saved.”
- Ad creative: You provide the image or video for the AI to analyze.
- Ad copy: The headline, body text, and any calls to action.
This is a summary. I’ve made this prompt available for free at CEOworkbench.com. You just fill in your ad info, paste your creative, and let the AI run the analysis.
How the AI Breaks Down Your Facebook Ad
Once you hit go, the AI generates a detailed report. Here’s what it covers:
1. Overall Impression and Clickworthiness
The AI describes the vibe of your ad – is it calm, exciting, minimalist? It then estimates the likelihood your target audience will click, based on your objective.
For example, the AI might say: “Warm minimalist flat-lay of zero-waste bathroom staples. Feels calm and intentional. Click likelihood for traffic objective is moderate.” This instantly tells you the ad isn’t terrible, but it’s not grabbing enough attention.
2. Visual Analysis
The AI evaluates your image’s effectiveness. It might flag a muted color palette as an issue because it gets lost in a fast-scrolling feed. This is a detail you might miss but could be killing your engagement.
3. Copy Analysis
The AI critiques your headline and body copy separately. It looks for:
- Whether the headline highlights a tangible benefit or metric.
- If the copy creates curiosity and urgency.
- Whether the message matches what the audience expects.
- If the copy lowers the commitment barrier.
- Any missing proof points or social validation.
For instance, the AI might point out your headline lacks a promise that justifies a click or that your body copy misses proof such as carbon grams saved.
4. Synergy Between Copy and Creative
The AI assesses whether the image and text work together or send mixed signals. This helps you avoid disjointed ads that confuse your audience.
5. Actionable Recommendations
AI doesn’t just critique your ad; it gives you specific copy tweaks and new headline options designed to boost performance. For example, “Swap One Plastic Item, Save 42 g of Waste Today.”
This quantifies the benefit and lowers the friction for your audience to act.
Testing Headlines with AI
Beyond diagnosing, the AI can generate multiple headline options tailored to your audience to maximize click-through rate (CTR). For example, after inputting a suggested headline, you can ask the AI for five punchy alternatives tuned for eco-savvy Gen Z scrollers.
Each headline pairs a single, low-friction action with a concrete benefit to drive clicks. This gives you ready-to-run A/B test options without guessing what might work.
Limitations and How to Overcome Them
There’s one downside to this method: you’re asking a single AI to impersonate an entire audience. That’s a lot of weight for one model to bear and can limit accuracy.
I’ve addressed this in another approach using a swarm of AI’s, each acting like a specific customer persona. It produces even more precise feedback. If you follow me on X/Twitter or LinkedIn I show how I do that.
But even this “quick and dirty” cut-and-paste prompt delivers far more insight than blind guesswork.
What To Do Next
For more on running winning Facebook ads and marketing smarter, check out these resources:
What are the top founders actually doing with AI every month to turn a profit? More importantly, what are they doing differently from the rest of us?
In this blog, you’ll get the exact prompts and tools they use. You can copy them, run the process, and watch your company get AI-enabled in minutes.
The Problem with Random AI Hacks
If you’re not deploying AI at scale yet, it’s likely because you’re stuck in random hacks. You’re typing prompts into ChatGPT or Claude, maybe testing new tools here and there. But this “tool porn” – the endless hunting for the next shiny AI toy – only gives you a dopamine hit. It doesn’t scale. It doesn’t build real systems.
Elite AI-first CEOs don’t run around chasing every new tool. They have a systematic approach. They know exactly where AI fits in their business and how to get leverage from it. That’s what I’m going to teach you.
The AI Deployment Matrix: Your Framework for Real Impact
The secret is to stop asking vague questions like “How do I use AI?” and start with a clear framework. I call this the AI Deployment Matrix. It breaks down AI use into three leverage levels and four business functions.
- Leverage levels: Data Analysis, Creation, Automation
- Business functions: Sales, Marketing, Product, Support, Operations, Finance
Here’s what these mean:
- Data Analysis: Using AI to gather insights and market intelligence. Understand your environment better to make smarter decisions.
- Creation: Have AI generate assets – copy, code, marketing materials, product content, or support responses.
- Automation: Take repetitive tasks off your team’s plates and put them on machines.
With this matrix, you don’t just stumble onto tools. You systematically identify where AI can fill gaps and deliver value. Fill out this matrix for your business and watch how you check off AI deployments one by one until your company is fully AI-enabled.
How to Use AI to Get AI-Enabled
You don’t need a magic AI whisperer to get started. You use AI itself to plan your AI deployment.
But don’t just ask a generic question in a chat window. You need a precise, structured prompt that gives AI enough context and direction to deliver actionable advice. That’s where the AI Deployment Prompt (get it free here) comes in.
This prompt makes the AI your deployment adviser. You feed in your company’s specifics – what you do, your goals, pain points, current projects, constraints, and metrics. Then the AI maps out a step-by-step plan for deploying AI agents to hit your business targets.
You can download this prompt for free at CEOworkbench.com. It’s a skeleton that you fill with your business details.
Example: Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory
Let’s say you run “Wonka Industries,” a playful premium chocolate brand. You want to use AI to improve your marketing, specifically to analyze ads and reduce Facebook ad costs by 20% in 30 days.
You fill in the AI Deployment Prompt (Just a summary – get the full prompt free at CEOworkbench.com) with this context:
- Company: Wonka Industries, whimsical chocolate brand with viral golden ticket promos
- Function: Marketing
- Leverage level: Analysis
- Specific goal: Reduce Facebook cost per purchase by 20% in 30 days
- Company brief: Identity, current metrics, strategic objectives, active projects, budget constraints, risks
You hit submit, and the AI delivers a precise plan.
The AI even gives you exact prompts to run, tells you which tools to use (like Zapier for automation), and sets KPI checkpoints to track progress.
Breaking Down the AI Plan
The AI plan is a three-step sprint:
- Analyze: Cluster existing ads by features to find what works.
- Create: Generate fresh ad variants based on insights.
- Automate: Pull daily ad metrics and kill underperforming ads automatically.
If you’re unfamiliar with tools like Zapier, the AI walks you through step-by-step how to set them up, what to click, and the pre-work needed. It doesn’t assume knowledge. It gives you clear, actionable instructions.
Beyond Marketing: AI Use Cases Across Your Business
Marketing is just one function. Here’s how AI fits in other areas:
- Product: Create one-pagers for new products. Use customer support data to identify top pain points and craft marketing collateral that addresses them.
- Support: Turn incoming emails into structured tickets, automatically route them to the right team, and draft responses.
- Operations: Automate repetitive workflows, freeing your team to focus on higher-value work.
With the AI Deployment Matrix and prompt in hand, you can map out each function and leverage level. Then run your AI adviser to get tailored next steps. Repeat weekly. That’s how you fully AI-enable your company.
Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
AI doesn’t work if you feed it vague goals. If you ask for “help with marketing” without specifics, you’ll get generic fluff. The prompt I give you demands concrete targets – like reducing Facebook ad costs by 20% in 30 days. AI handles specificity well.
Sometimes AI will suggest something unrealistic. That’s fine. Nudge it with more info and refine. Don’t expect a one-shot magic bullet. AI lets you zigzag toward your goal faster than weeks or months of guesswork.
Don’t skip tracking KPIs. If you don’t track numbers, AI won’t know if you’re moving the needle or heading off course. Your data feeds the AI’s advice.
One-off AI use won’t cut it. Use your AI adviser weekly. Update it with progress. Ask what’s next. Turn it into a conversation. You’re building a team of AI experts guiding every part of your business – without hiring a full management layer.
Next Steps for Serious Entrepreneurs
Elite founders use a framework – the AI Deployment Matrix – to know exactly where to apply AI for maximum leverage.
Here’s what you can do next:
- If you want your marketing to take off like a rocket, here’s a tool I’ve built: atomized.ai. It simulates thousands of AI-powered customers to predict if your ads will convert before you spend a dime. This cuts wasted ad spend and speeds up testing.
- Use the AI Deployment Prompt and Matrix from CEOworkbench.com. Fill in your company details. Run it this week. Track the metric you move. Then come back for a weekly check-in.
Additional Resources
- Search Ads Crash Course – Master paid ads with tested strategies.
- Case Study: Beverage Facebook Marketing – Real data on Facebook ad performance.
- Crash Course: Email Marketing – Build revenue with email automation.
- Crash Course: Retargeting Campaigns – Get more conversions from warm leads.
- How to Scale Your Company Without More Sales – Improve efficiency and margins.
- Entrepreneurs: 8 Keys to Scale Your Business Quickly – Tactical growth advice.
Marketing without data is guesswork. Most marketers fly blind, hoping their campaigns land. That’s why 99% of campaigns fail to stand out. What if you had a clear process that used AI to turn raw data into sharp insights and then into campaigns that convert? That’s exactly what I’m laying out here. No fluff, no hype – just a tested, three-step prompt framework that beats most marketers at their own game.
This article breaks down the exact AI prompt templates I use to solve real marketing problems – targeting, conversion, content creation, and more. You’ll learn how to feed the AI the right information, get actionable insights, and build campaigns that deliver.
The Three-Step Process That Wins: Evidence, Insight, Action
The key is to map that process into a series of AI prompts that work together. Most prompts you see online fail because they skip steps. They ask AI to just spit out copy or a campaign based on a vague customer avatar. It misses the loop of data, insight, and action.
Here’s the framework:
- Evidence: Gather relevant, real-world data about your market, customers, and competitors.
- Insight: Analyze that data to understand what’s driving behavior and where opportunities lie.
- Action: Build campaigns based on those insights, tailored to your brand and audience.
Use one prompt, get mediocre results. Use all three, and you get campaigns that outthink and outperform most marketers.
Step 1: Gather Market Intelligence With a Detailed AI Prompt
The first step is to feed AI the right data. You want to create a detailed market intelligence scraper prompt. This prompt asks for:
- Company and product details
- Primary customer segments
- Top competitors
- Creative snippets from competitors
- Relevant community discussions (Reddit, Facebook groups, etc.)
(The above is NOT the prompt, it’s a summary – get the full prompt free at CEOworkbench.com)
Here’s the catch: your prompt must be long and packed with context. The more information you give, the better the AI understands the landscape. I’m talking six pages worth of company brief sometimes. Don’t skimp on context. For example, you can dictate a five-minute transcript about your product and customers and paste that in.
Why so long? Because AI isn’t magic. It needs context to avoid hallucination and produce relevant, accurate outputs. If you give it scraps, it will guess. If you give it a full dossier, it will analyze.
One practical tip: scrape community threads and titles from Reddit or Facebook. These are gold mines for what real customers care about. For example, if you’re selling a sugar-free chocolate bar, Reddit threads like “What’s your favorite sugar-free chocolate that doesn’t taste like stevia?” tell you taste and aftertaste are major pain points.
If you want to automate this, you can set up AI agents to scrape these data points regularly. I’m working on trainings for that at CEO Workbench. But even manual scraping and pasting is a start.
Step 2: Analyze the Data With a Marketing Insight Analyst Prompt
Once you have raw data, don’t jump to action. You need to analyze it. Think of this step as hiring a marketing analyst who digs through the data and finds white space opportunities and audience pain points.
This second prompt takes your market intelligence dump and outputs:
- Share of voice for key messaging themes
- Gaps in the market competitors aren’t addressing
- Audience pains and desires
- Feasible angles for your brand to pursue
- Risks and impact for each angle
(Again, the above is NOT the prompt, it’s a summary – get the full prompt free at CEOworkbench.com)
For example, with the sugar-free chocolate bar, the AI highlighted that taste parity and creamy mouthfeel are non-negotiables. It identified concerns about stevia aftertaste and fears of craving rebound. It even suggested a “satiety lock formula” angle inspired by the Charlie & The Chocolate Factory Willy Wonka story’s everlasting flavor gum.
This step takes minutes, but would take a human analyst days or weeks.
Step 3: Build a Campaign With the Growth Campaign Architect Prompt
Now, take the insights and turn them into an actionable campaign blueprint. This prompt (Just a summary – get the full prompt free at CEOworkbench.com) is your AI campaign architect. It generates:
- Target audience and messaging strategy
- Channel mix and budget allocation
- Creative concepts and headline ideas
- Testing and scaling plan
- Key performance indicators and go/no-go criteria
- Risks to watch for
For the Wonka example, the AI proposed a campaign focused on “creamy mouthfeel science,” leveraging TikTok and Instagram with user-generated content style videos. It suggested a $5,000 budget and a three-step test plan launching multiple ad variants.
If you don’t like certain elements, like TikTok ads, you tell the AI and it rebuilds the plan for Instagram only. If you hate UGC ads, ask it for influencer-style video options. This iterative process is faster and cheaper than hiring an agency or waiting months for a new employee to get up to speed.
Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
1. Vagueness kills. “Give me a campaign” is a garbage prompt. You need to be specific and detailed at every step. Use the three-step prompting method to pull out maximum info.
2. Provide competitor creative. Upload competitor ads, images, and copy if you can. Most large language models can analyze images now. This lets AI find white space and positioning gaps competitors miss.
3. Know your metrics. Be clear on what success looks like. Brand awareness? Opt-ins? Purchases? Different goals require different campaigns. Tell the AI what number matters.
Think of the AI like a new employee. Without context, it won’t perform. But with clear data and goals, it can deliver results quickly and repeatedly.
Why This Works Better Than Most Marketing Advice
This approach avoids guesswork and generic “customer avatar” nonsense. It’s about feeding AI real data, getting sharp insights, and building campaigns based on facts, not assumptions. It’s practical, tactical, and ruthless.
Get the Prompts and Resources
All these prompts and more are available free at CEO Workbench. You’ll also find trainings on data scraping and campaign building.
For testing Facebook Ads before you spend a dime, check out atomized.ai. It generates thousands of AI customer proxies to test messaging and targeting.
Further Reading and Resources
- Crash Course: Instagram Ads
- Testing Your Way to Success
- Copy-Paste Problem: Don’t Imitate Other Businesses
- Boring Brands Finish Last: How to Capture Attention
If you want to build smarter marketing campaigns that consistently outperform, start here. Feed your AI with real data. Extract sharp insights. Build campaigns that hit your real goals. No guesswork, no fluff.
Entrepreneurs waste too much time juggling multiple AI prompts that deliver mediocre results. I found a better way. I built one single prompt that adapts to any business problem—whether it’s marketing, strategy, operations, finance, or customer research. It acts like an entire executive team at your fingertips. This is the only AI prompt you need because it thinks like a founder. Below, I’ll walk you through how it works, why it works, and how to customize it for your unique challenges.
Why One Executive Team Prompt Beats a Dozen Random Prompts
Most entrepreneurs face the same problem: they don’t have the right talent on tap when they need it. Even if you have people in place, they’re not always available when you’re brainstorming at 2 AM or need a quick second opinion on a wild idea. What if you had access to the best thinking of the best people, instantly?
That’s the concept behind this prompt. Instead of juggling dozens of disconnected prompts, you create ONE prompt that builds a virtual executive team inside your AI platform—whether that’s ChatGPT, Claude, or another AI.
This prompt acts like a company in a box. It asks you eight key questions to build a company brief, then recommends the first virtual executives you should hire. Those executives become AI personas you can interact with repeatedly, each with its own memory and context. You can ask your VP of Marketing about the best ad strategy, then check with your CFO if the budget makes sense. They talk to each other through you, just like a real executive team.
Building Your Company Brief: The Foundation of Your Virtual Team
The first step is to feed the AI enough context about your company so it understands your mission, vision, products, services, financials, and challenges. This company brief forms the base for all future conversations with your AI executives. The better your input, the better the output.
For example, I used Willy Wonka’s chocolate company as a test case:
- Company Name: Wonka Industries
- Mission: Deliver magical confections that spark childlike wonder every day.
- Vision: A world where joy is as common as chocolate.
- Products & Services: Various chocolate treats including the Everlasting Gobstopper.
- Annual Revenue: Significant, but your numbers can be zero. The AI adapts.
- Year-over-year growth: 12%
- Biggest Financial Pain: Volatile cocoa prices and safety issues from experimental products.
(The above is NOT the prompt, it’s a summary – get the full prompt free at CEOworkbench.com)
You can be as detailed or brief as you want. I often dictate 20 minutes of notes or paste in financial reports and marketing campaigns. The more you give it, the smarter your AI team gets.
How AI Recommends Your First Virtual Executives
Once the AI has your company brief, it suggests the key roles you need to fill. For Wonka Industries, it recommended roles like VP of Marketing and Chief Financial Officer. These aren’t just titles—they come with mandates and priorities tailored to your business context.
The AI doesn’t just throw out generic roles. It factors in company size, growth rate, financial challenges, and product specifics. It then builds virtual executives who know your business and can act accordingly.
Creating Your Virtual Executives
Next, you take the recommended roles and turn them into AI personas. I use a prompt template that tells the AI its role, the company it works for, its mandate, and then pastes the company brief as essential context.
For example, there’s the prompt for the VP of Marketing at Wonka (again, you can get it free at CEOworkbench.com)
When you run this prompt, the AI produces a detailed response outlining the VP’s top priorities for the next seven days, such as finalizing product positioning, locking in budgets, and launching ad campaigns. It even suggests metrics like customer acquisition cost (CAC) and strategies to reduce it.
If something is off, you correct it. For example, I told the AI that we don’t run YouTube ads, only Facebook, and it updated the strategy accordingly. You can also ask your AI executives to explain jargon like CAC without needing to Google it.
Building the CFO and Having Your Virtual Executives Collaborate
The same process works for other roles. I created a CFO for Wonka with a mandate to manage cash flow, hedge risks like volatile cocoa prices, and monitor runway. The AI gave me a seven-day priority list including a “rainbow sugar hedge strategy” and cash on hand details.
Here’s where it gets interesting. I asked the CFO to review the VP of Marketing’s proposed incremental ad budget. The CFO analyzed the cash position, customer acquisition cost benchmarks, and recommended conditional approval with staged spending.
Then I relayed the CFO’s feedback back to the VP of Marketing. The AI executives started an internal dialogue, providing layered insights. This back-and-forth simulates how real executives would discuss decisions.
Why This Beats Random Prompts and How It Scales
Most AI users run a dozen unrelated prompts and start fresh every time. That wastes context and time. Here, each executive chat has its own memory. The VP of Marketing remembers previous conversations. The CFO remembers their last financial report. When you have a new problem, you consult the right executive with full context.
This method keeps your company brief separate and clean, so your strategy doesn’t get mixed up with personal or other unrelated chats. Your virtual executives get smarter over time as you feed them more info.
It’s not magic. The AI won’t nail numbers or strategy perfectly on day one. But that’s no different from hiring real people. They need time to learn your business. Use dictation or paste detailed notes to train your AI team quickly. You can have a trained virtual executive team in days, not months.
This approach doesn’t replace real experts. It accelerates your decision-making and idea validation before you chew up your human team’s time. It lets you test strategy, check risks, and challenge assumptions in a low-cost, fast way. Then you come to your real team with a clear plan that’s already been vetted.
How to Get Started and Where to Find the Prompts
You can download the full set of prompts for free at CEOworkbench.com. They include the company onboarding prompt and individual executive role prompts. You can use any AI platform you prefer. I use ChatGPT Projects to organize mine, but it’s optional.
Why This Matters for Serious Entrepreneurs
If you’re serious about scaling your business, this prompt framework puts you in control. You get instant access to an aligned, data-driven executive team without the overhead of hiring. You get clarity on priorities, risks, and strategy. You avoid wasting time on disjointed AI prompts that don’t talk to each other.
Use this approach to:
- Validate new ideas before committing resources.
- Test marketing strategies without guesswork (for example, see my YouTube ads crash course).
- Keep your executive team aligned on updated company info.
- Make faster, smarter decisions with layered expert input.
This method is about discipline, not hype. It’s about cutting through the noise to get straight answers that align with your business reality.
Next Steps
Start by building your company brief. Use dictation if you want to speed it up. Paste in your financials, marketing data, and whatever else helps the AI understand your business. Then generate your first virtual executives and start asking questions.
Free shipping looks like a no-brainer to boost sales online. Customers love it. Sellers think it’s a win. But it’s not that simple. I’m Raj Jha, and I’ve spent years advising companies on real strategies that grow profits—not just sales numbers. Today, I’m breaking down why free shipping might be costing you more than it’s worth, and what you should do instead.
Why Free Shipping Isn’t the Golden Ticket
At first glance, free shipping seems like an easy way to remove friction and get more buyers. You drop the shipping fee, customers don’t feel the extra cost, and they buy more, right? The research tells a different story.
Researchers at Dartmouth’s Tuck Business School studied this in depth. They published their findings in the Journal of Marketing Research under the paper titled Free Shipping and Product Returns. The takeaway: free shipping encourages customers to make riskier purchases.
Riskier purchases mean customers buy things they usually wouldn’t. Why? Because the shipping cost, which acts as a small brake, disappears. Without that friction, customers gamble on products they’re unsure about.
More buyers sound good until you realize what happens next: returns shoot up. Riskier purchases lead to more returns. Customers try things out and send them back because they weren’t fully committed to the buy in the first place.
Here’s the problem: returns eat into your profits. They cost you shipping fees, restocking, and sometimes the product can’t be resold at full price. So, free shipping boosts sales but also boosts returns. You have to weigh these two forces.
High-Risk vs. Low-Risk Products: What You Sell Matters
The researchers divided products into two buckets:
- High-risk products: Items hard to evaluate without seeing or touching them. Think jeans, bras, cosmetics, anything with fit, feel, or quality questions.
- Low-risk products: Items where customers know exactly what they’re getting. Vacuum cleaner bags, storage boxes, mirrors—products with little guesswork.
Free shipping mostly pushes up purchases in the high-risk category. Customers are more willing to gamble on that $250 pair of boots if they don’t have to pay shipping. But they also return more of those risky buys.
If you sell products that need to be tried before buying, free shipping is a double-edged sword. You get more sales, but you also get more returns.
The Numbers Don’t Lie: Free Shipping’s Hidden Costs
The research showed free shipping increases order volume by 11%—a decent bump in sales.
But here’s the kicker: when you factor in the lost revenue from shipping fees and the cost of increased returns, your profits drop by 0.7%. That’s a net loss, not a win.
Compare that to other promotions like coupons, which have a very different impact.
Coupons vs. Free Shipping: What Actually Works
Coupons don’t just push high-risk purchases. They boost sales across the board—high-risk and low-risk items alike. That balanced growth means you’re not skewing your basket toward items prone to returns.
Because coupons don’t disproportionately encourage risky buys, your return rate doesn’t spike like it does with free shipping. That keeps your profit margins healthier.
The bottom line: coupons stay profitable for sellers. Free shipping often doesn’t.
How to Decide What Works for Your Business
Don’t assume free shipping is right for you just because it’s popular. The key is to test and measure.
Step 1: Classify Your Products
Go through your product catalog. Split your items into high-risk and low-risk buckets. Ask yourself:
- Which products need to be seen or touched to evaluate?
- Which have fit, style, or color issues that are hard to judge online?
- What does customer feedback and complaint data tell you about returns?
If your inventory leans heavily on high-risk items like fashion or gadgets with subjective quality, free shipping might do more harm than good.
Step 2: Run a Controlled Test
Run an experiment with your customers:
- Offer free shipping to one group.
- Offer a coupon (say, $10 off) to another group.
- Track sales, returns, and net profit per customer over a month.
This isn’t guesswork. It’s data-driven decision-making. The Dartmouth study ran this on over 700,000 customers and proved it works. Your data will tell you what’s better for your shop.
Step 3: Adjust Your Strategy
If free shipping leads to higher returns and lower profits, pivot. Use coupons or tiered discounts instead.
Tiered discounts are simple: spend $50, get 10% off. These incentives keep sales up without flooding you with returns like free shipping does.
Measure, scale what works, and drop what doesn’t.
Don’t Default to Free Shipping
Free shipping looks like a win until you see the hidden costs:
- Higher return rates
- Lost shipping revenue
- Lower net profits
- Unpredictable, unsustainable growth
Instead, focus on smarter incentives like loyalty rewards, tiered discounts, and targeted promotions that build lasting customer value and steady profits.
What Comes Next
If you want to grow your online business, don’t fall for the free shipping trap. It’s not about more sales. It’s about better profits. Use data, test your offers, and most importantly, know your products. The right strategy depends on what you sell and how your customers behave.
For more insights on scaling your business the scientific way, visit the CEO Workbench. And if you want to dive deeper into improving sales and customer loyalty without sacrificing profits, check out my guide on testing your way to success.
Ignoring customer reviews isn’t just a missed opportunity; it can cost you sales. Studies show that responding to your reviews in the right way can boost ratings, increase conversions, and strengthen your reputation. Yet, most businesses either ignore reviews or respond incorrectly, inadvertently hurting their sales.
Researchers from USC and Boston University investigated whether replying to reviews actually impacts businesses. They focused on hotels on TripAdvisor, but the findings are applicable to any business that receives online reviews. Spoiler alert: responding to reviews does move the needle, but there’s a catch. It not only changes your ratings but also alters how customers review you, potentially increasing negative reviews. Stick around, as we’ll cover how to turn even negative reviews into a win for your business.
Reviews are Make or Break
Online reviews are far from mere noise; they can make or break a business. The researchers found that when hotels began responding to reviews, their TripAdvisor ratings increased by an average of 0.12 stars. While that may seem small, it’s significant on a five-star scale where most ratings hover between 3 and 4.5 stars. This seemingly minor boost led to 27% of hotels improving their ratings by half a star within six months. Furthermore, they received 12% more reviews overall. More reviews and higher ratings? That sounds like a no-brainer, right?
However, there’s a twist. Responding to reviews not only garners praise but also leads to fewer, yet longer, negative reviews. Customers who feel scrutinized may either skip venting or decide to elaborate on their grievances, providing detailed accounts of their experiences. This dual outcome raises an important question: is responding to reviews worth it for your business?
What the Research Reveals
To understand this, we need to look at how the researchers conducted their study. They compared hotels that responded on TripAdvisor with their ratings on Expedia, where responses are rare. Using a method called “difference in differences,” they tracked ratings before and after hotels initiated responses. They even analyzed if guests who stayed at the same time rated differently based on whether they reviewed before or after a hotel responded.
The result was a clear increase: a 0.12 star boost and a 12% rise in the volume of reviews. This method can work for any business, whether you’re in retail, dentistry, or food service. The driving factor here is psychology. When you reply, customers feel heard. This acknowledgment makes them more likely to leave feedback—especially positive feedback. However, for negative reviews, it raises the stakes. Customers know you might call them out, which can lead to elaborate critiques.
Understanding the Trade-offs
What does this mean for your business? If you have a plethora of vague complaints, responding could help clarify those issues. However, brace yourself for more detailed critiques. The good news? You’ll likely receive fewer negative reviews overall, and the ones you do get will be longer and more constructive. This makes it easier to address specific concerns, which is beneficial for both you and future customers.
For instance, if you manage to get that 0.12 star boost, your rating might improve from 4.1 to 4.2 stars. While that’s not a massive leap, it can make you stand out from competitors. Additionally, that 12% increase in reviews means more opportunities for positive feedback. If you have 100 reviews, that’s 12 more chances to showcase your strengths or defend against negative comments.
Implementing a Review Response Strategy
So, how do you make this work without screwing it up? The research doesn’t provide a perfect response template, but it does hint at effective strategies. Here’s a three-step plan to respond like a pro:
- Reply to Everything: Yes, you read that right. Respond to positive, negative, and neutral reviews at about the same rate—around 31%. Every reply shows you’re engaged. Thank a five-star fan to keep them coming back and tackle the one-star rants to demonstrate transparency. Start with your most visible platforms—Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor—and respond to every review, even the older ones.
- Stay Professional: Negative reviews can become more detailed when you respond, as customers feel watched. Avoid getting defensive. Acknowledge their issue calmly, like, “We’re sorry that your meal was cold,” or “We’re sorry that shipping was delayed.” Offer a fix, a discount, or a promise to improve. This approach cuts short baseless complaints and builds trust with future readers of those reviews.
- Test and Track: This is not about guesswork. Understand what works for your business. Pick a 30-day window to respond to all reviews and measure your results. Did your average rating climb? Are you getting more reviews? Are the negatives longer but less frequent? The study shows that noticeable results can take about six months, but you can test faster than that.
Dealing with Longer Negative Reviews
One downside to this approach is that negative reviews may become more detailed, turning a simple complaint into a lengthy account of dissatisfaction. While that can be daunting, remember that the research indicates fewer negative reviews overall. Customers either skip venting or pour their hearts out in essays. For your business, this means you can choose between cleaner ratings with occasional deep dives or a pile of unchecked gripes.
Every review is an opportunity. It’s a chance to build trust, recover a dissatisfied customer, or showcase why people love your business. Responding isn’t merely about damage control; it’s about creating a strong, customer-focused brand that people trust over competitors.
What To Do Next
Responding to reviews isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s essential. If you’re looking for a proven way to turn reviews into more sales, don’t miss the chance to implement this strategy. Remember, the goal isn’t just to manage your reputation; it’s to build a brand that resonates with your customers.
For more insights, visit the CEO Workbench for free resources on scaling your business scientifically: CEO Workbench. Also check out my book, The Business Unlock, for which shows how to set up your business for AI-ready scale.