I’ve been learning about artificial intelligence, or AI, over about the last year or year and a half. Most days, and this is a little embarrassing, I’ve probably spent two to three hours using or learning about AI. And especially ChatGPT.
Given the questions I get from friends and colleagues about this, especially about using ChatGPT in a small business, I thought it’d make sense to share how I’ve or we’ve been using this new tool.
Organizing This Discussion
Using ChatGPT in a small business though? A big topic. Thus, I’m going to break this discussion into two parts.
In this part, which I consider part 1, I’m going to list and briefly describe all the examples of how we’re probably productively been using ChatGPT in our small business. (The CPA firm in other words.) But I’m hoping you can use my ideas to begin incorporating something like ChatGPT into your work.
In the second part, “Small Business ChatGPT Tips and Tricks,” I share some basic tips and techniques I found work well and get you or me good or better results.
And one other comment as I start: This is going to be a bit of a laundry list. But that’s not just because lists provide an easy structure for writing. I think you and I approach an AI like ChatGPT with the idea that we’re going to build a laundry list of tasks it can help us do better. That, I think, should be our immediate goal.
So, here’s my current laundry list…
General Help with Writing Emails
A quick first task. And this is pretty general. But if you need some help getting your emails “just right?” ChatGPT is your friend. And in a potpourri of ways. Some examples.
If you need to write emails in other than your native language? That’s obviously often a struggle. But here’s what you can do. Write in your native language—and then have ChatGPT translate that message into the appropriate language for the email. This works great.
Another example: If you need to, let me just say this politely, if you need to be a little less angry and a little more composed? Have ChatGPT soften the language of your first draft.
Finally, another example: If you’re struggling with grammar, punctuation, typos or other silly mistakes for whatever reason? Get ChatGPT to proof your writing.
By the way, a possible side effect of this approach? I’m guessing it will over time allow the people to polish their writing skills.
Writing Awkward Emails
A related example: writing those awkward emails that take too much time. Often because the subject matter is potentially hurtful or emotionally charged: declining to interview a job applicant, rejecting a candidate for some position, or disengaging from a client. Also any other communication where you or I may struggle with writer’s block. Or where we may procrastinate as we worry about the wording.
ChatGPT suffers from no emotional block about writing, for example, an awkward email. What it writes? Surely good enough. Always nice enough. Almost surely “legally” safe. And absolutely massively faster at this work than you or I are.
Thus, use ChatGPT to write an adequate email. Then click Send. Done.
The “Quick Question” Emails
You know what I’m talking about here if you’re in a service business. The “I just have a quick question” trap: So, your or my client or customer has a question or set of questions, wants a quick, free answer, and assumes you or I can dash off a quick response. Ideally this afternoon.
Reality: Rarely do these “quick questions” take only a minute or two to draft and then send. It’s a half hour. Or longer.
Thus, I think, if you or I attribute the email to ChatGPT, we have ChatGPT write these. This approach converts a maybe 45-minute task into that five-minute task. One you or I can provide for free.
And two subtle benefits of this approach. First, when you’re sharing bad news or awkward truths, you may find it useful to be quoting something ChatGPT says. (You aren’t the one telling them some idea doesn’t work. ChatGPT tells them.) Second, and maybe unfairly, ChatGPT can be a more authoritative source than you or I are delivering personalized information. (If you want another source? Here’s what ChatGPT says…)
A sidebar comment about all these email-related tasks: I don’t think this stuff is merely nibbling around the edges. CPAs for example basically get paid for half the hours they work. Your business may experience something similar. Thus, if you or I can dial down the minutes we spend here and there communicating with clients and vendors, colleagues and coworkers, we should save hours each week.
Writing Software Code
I want to talk now about some of the new work an AI like ChatGPT can do. And the obvious first example here? Programming. You and I, even if we’re not experienced or trained programmers, can use ChatGPT to write source code. And at extremely low cost.
We can then use this software to automate bits of our businesses. Or to increase the value of the products or services we provide. Or to cut the costs of those products and services.
This should make sense, right? Because you and I have work we do where some software would help… Software that no software development company will ever produce. So, the answer: We do it ourselves.
This step requires a bit of set-up time. It took me about a day to figure out what to do with the JavaScript ChatGPT has been writing for our blog posts recently. Getting Python running on my computer? That took a few hours too. (I had not really programmed for decades.) Roughly speaking, I can now write a blog post that includes a JavaScript calculator in about the same time as a blog post that doesn’t.
This has been a meaningful improvement for us. One example to illustrate. We use our blog to market our niche services across the US. And ChatGPT gives me the ability to bump the value of our blog’s posts by adding JavaScript calculators to some of those posts.
We’ve got “calculators” that estimate the tax savings from an S corporation, that estimate reasonable S corporation shareholder-employee compensation, that calculate the depreciation deductions from cost segregation studies, that answer some of those perennial Roth IRA questions, and a bunch more.
You may be able to do something similar in your operation. Or even something identical.
One-on-one Mentoring and Personalized Education
Another example and in a sense something the programming stuff I just mentioned illustrates. ChatGPT will teach you and me stuff. Complicated stuff.
You can start by having it write a short overview of some subject you in your job or people in your industry struggle with. You can then ask detailed questions. Repeatedly. You can provide examples that explain your current understanding throughout this process using specific client details. (“So let me get this straight, ChatGPT. For my client named Steve, in this situation, it works like this?”) ChatGPT shows endless patience. It works day or night. You can in effect torture it with dumb questions. The sort no one would ever ask in a classroom or seminar.
Seriously, the next time you have a question in the past you’d ask a knowledgeable colleague or mentor? Ask ChatGPT. (I participate as an admin in a couple of online social media networks for CPAs. And most of the questions folks ask? They should probably ask ChatGPT.)
Reasonable-cost Research Reports and Management Consultant Studies
Small businesses often don’t get to do the same sorts of research that larger firms do. Or get to regularly consult with industry or management experts.
For example, the big guys may have economists on staff who look at the likely scenarios the near future holds. They may also either employ or engage with true experts to plan for and think about the challenges and opportunities their business and industry face.
And then what about pursuing or ignoring the strategy or tactic de jour? (In public accounting right now, firms of all sizes wonder whether private equity funds owning a firm makes sense.) The small guys don’t have people (typically) they can ask about stuff like this.
However, now? With ChatGPT? In all of the above cases, you and I can get lengthy written analyses customized to our firm’s specific situation. Concerned about how new tariffs will affect your business or your clients? Or about how inflation may affect you or your clients? Worried about the compensation levels needed to fully staff your firm with great talent? Struggling to understand how something like private equity ownership of firms in your industry impacts your business plan?
ChatGPT will do all this research and analysis for you. And extremely quickly. You can get insights and commentary about the range of economic outcomes from new government policy for your firm this morning as you have your coffee. Actionable insights about current and future salary levels and labor shortages within the profession tomorrow morning–again with your coffee. The private equity thing? Again, with your morning coffee. But maybe two cups for that.
By the way this thought: Will these ChatGPT reports and analysis be perfect? Full of bulletproof analysis? Will the actions they suggest be guaranteed to deliver great or at least good results?
I think not. But getting pretty good research and pretty good analysis surely beats the option of not looking at and considering this stuff. (And I’m not sure what you’d get from an expensive expert is that much better.)
Monte Carlo Simulations and Scenario Planning
A quick thing to point out. You and I can get ChatGPT to do Monte Carlo analysis for our investment planning. And scenario planning for our business plans and forecasts.
I think ChatGPT is particularly useful for doing Monte Carlo simulations. To start, get ChatGPT to explain what a Monte Carlo is and how it works. You can then get its help to collect the handful of inputs needed. And you can then ask it to make the calculations. And then ask it redo the calculations for an alternative set of assumptions.
The same reality occurs with scenario planning. Say you were thinking about selling out to a private equity firm. You can easily get ChatGPT to model the financial outcomes of continuing to operate independently, selling out to a private equity, and any other option too.
For what it’s worth? When I asked ChatGPT to analyze for fun our firm selling out to a private equity firm, it estimated we would simply be converting ordinary income to capital gains and would probably, even if CPA firm valuations deflated, end up with much better outcomes by staying “partner owned.” That analysis also acknowledged but didn’t quantify the benefits of autonomy by working for ourselves versus (and here I quote ChatGPT) working for “MBAs with spreadsheets.” I intuitively knew in our situation all this was true. But I found it interesting and useful to get another, neutral, objective point of view.
Critiquing Business Strategies and Tactics
Okay, a subtle point but an important one. I don’t feel like a ChatGPT-style AI does a good job at business planning, strategy, or tactics. For one thing, it “thinks” or “does what it does” too linearly. For another thing, probably you and I can’t prompt it with enough of the right information to come out with innovative, highly personalized strategies and tactics.
But you know what ChatGPT is really good at? Looking at some plan, strategy or tactic that you or I or a consultant or client develops and then critiquing it. There? It often will spot errors or bugs or holes.
Sorry for falling down the rabbit hole for a paragraph. (Just this paragraph.) And I’m not sure about exact error rate percentages here. But here’s what I think happens when you have ChatGPT “check your work.” If when we’re on our game our error rate is five percent and ChatGPT’s error rate is twenty percent? (And those percentages feel about right actually.) A compounding benefit occurs. And the overall effective error rate drops to maybe one percent. (The actual math maybe looks like this: 20% times 5% equals 1%.)
Three Final Thoughts
Let me close with three final thoughts.
First, I don’t think something like ChatGPT replaces a good knowledge worker any more than a nail gun and air compressor replace a master carpenter. After more than a year, though, I do think you and I will use ChatGPT for work we can’t affordably or efficiently do now. For a reasonable price.
Tip: To put this into dollars? I think we pay OpenAI $20 a month per person right now for a subscription to ChatGPT 4o. Paying $200 a month per person for ChatGPT o1? Yeah, that’s probably okay. But at some point, say the price was $2,000 a month per person, I don’t know if that would make economic sense. At least not given how we’re able to use the technology.
Second thought: I feel like ChatGPT amplifies worker productivity and performance. You boost someone’s performance by maybe—this is a fermi number guess—by maybe 20 to 30 percent. That means a couple of things, I suggest. First, you and I don’t become less valuable with AI we become more valuable. (For $20 a month, you or I maybe become like 20 percent smarter.) Second, the most important people to get up to speed with an AI tool like ChatGPT? Your most skilled and experienced team members.
Here’s my third and final thought. An AI like ChatGPT should allow you or me to dramatically boost the performance of our small businesses rather quickly. So not at some point in the future like three years from now. But today. Or maybe tomorrow. The trick though? And this gets back to the laundry list comment I made earlier. We need to experiment and explore and ultimately build a list of tasks where ChatGPT lets us do more work and new useful work.