Learn More about the Life First Business Lab : https://www.deeplyrootedbusiness.com/lfbl?podcast

If you've ever asked ChatGPT or Claude to write something for you and ended up with robotic, generic content full of emojis, buzzwords, and phrases you'd never actually say, this episode is for you.

Jessica and Rachel break down the exact framework they use to get AI outputs that require minimal editing while still sounding authentic and on-brand. They introduce the ROOTS Framework, a five-part prompting method that transforms AI from a generic content machine into a well-trained team member who understands your voice, goals, and business.

You'll learn why most AI failures are actually prompting failures, how to provide better context, and how to create reusable prompts that save hours every week.

Let's unpack:

• Why generic prompts create generic AI outputs
• The biggest mistake most people make when using AI
• The 5-part ROOTS Framework for better prompting
• How to train AI to sound more like you
• Why AI should be treated like a team member, not a tool

Check out the Life First Business Lab: https://www.deeplyrootedbusiness.com/lfbl?podcast

A plug-and-play AI employee membership designed for non-techy business owners who need real support without building everything from scratch.

Meet Your Hosts

Jessica Walther is the founder and CEO of The Launch Collaborative and Sustainable Success Systems. As a launch strategist and systems consultant, Jess is dedicated to helping solo business owners and small-but-mighty teams build businesses that deliver both peace and profit. She specializes in creating sustainable growth strategies that align with her clients' values and lifestyles.

Rachel Lopez is the founder and CEO of Gal Marketing Agency, a boutique email marketing and strategy firm. With over a decade of experience, Rachel helps heart-driven entrepreneurs craft intentional marketing strategies that attract, nurture, and convert leads sustainably. Her human-first approach ensures that marketing efforts feel authentic and effective .

Together, Jess and Rachel blend systems, storytelling, and soulful strategy to help you grow a business that's deeply aligned with your life—not just your revenue goals.

Connect With Us:

• Jess Website
• Rachel's Website

Hang Out & Say Hi!

• Deeply Rooted Business Instagram
• Jess Instagram
• Rachel's Instagram

All right, so as an AI power user, sometimes I get personally

2

offended where people complain about

AI and it not giving the output that

3

they need because they type something

like, "Write me an Instagram caption

4

about my new offer," and they get mad

when AI gives them, "Rocket ship emoji.

5

Exciting news.

6

I'm thrilled to announce my brand new

offer that will transfer your business!

7

Exclamation Point.

8

Exclamation Point.

9

DM me to learn more."

10

It's generic, and they get mad, and

then they blame my friend Claude,

11

and it's really not his fault.

12

Rachel: Yeah, I mean, the extra emojis, I

use a lot of exclamation points in my copy

13

as it is just 'cause that's how I talk.

14

But that is not everybody and making sure

the things that you would never say, maybe

15

you would never say the word thrilled.

16

Ultimately, those are the realities

of people that have tried and then

17

come down and say , "Oh, I sound

everybody else on the internet."

18

Which pretty much means you sound

like no one 'cause there's not

19

truly an identity rooted in there.

20

so people that have experienced

that rollercoaster of an emotion

21

just ultimately end up deciding

that AI isn't good or it's not for

22

them, it can't capture their voice.

23

But we're here to tell you that it wasn't

the AI that failed you, it was the prompt.

24

It was your request to the AI.

25

handed it a vague sentence, and

expected it to ultimately read your

26

mind, which I don't know about you,

I love AI and I love supporting it,

27

but I'm not at that point where I

want my robots to be reading my mind.

28

Jessica: Yeah, yeah.

29

So the difference between getting

generic garbage or spending all

30

of my usage tokens really, really

quickly, is to give it a better brief.

31

Basically, AI is not a software, it's

not a tool, it's not a vending machine.

32

It is basically an employee.

33

So the more brief that you give it,

the better your output is gonna be.

34

So today we're gonna be sharing

our exact framework we use to get

35

outputs that we barely have to edit.

36

It's called the ROOTS framework.

37

It has five parts and it's gonna make

it super easy for you to remember so

38

that whenever you're typing in your

AI, you're getting what you need

39

faster and not wasting any time.

40

So if you've used ChatGPT, Claude, and

you've gotten an output that's fine,

41

technically correct, but totally soulless

and you felt like you needed to rewrite

42

the whole thing, this is gonna be for you.

43

You're gonna walk away with a

framework to follow so that AI feels

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more like you and less like a robot

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Rachel: Yeah.

46

So quick energy check before

we dive into all of this.

47

Really wanna make sure we're, you

know, holding ourselves true here.

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And if we're at that point where maybe

we've decided that AI doesn't work,

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obviously we talk about other things

on this podcast, but if you're over

50

here thinking, " I'm gonna skip this

episode because AI has never given me

51

anything that sounded like me, or it's

never given me any useful", we want you

52

to hold that thought a little loosely

and ask you to stick with us today.

53

Because like we had said,

it is not always the AI.

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It is most likely always the prompt.

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And that's the good news, is because the

prompt is the part that we can control.

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And the episode that we're walking through

today is ultimately the fix for it.

57

We're gonna walk through roots one

letter at a time with examples, And

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we want you to stick around until the

end 'cause we're gonna show you how to

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save your roots prompts once, and then

you never have to type it again, and

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that's where the real time saving comes.

61

Jessica: All right, so let's get into it.

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The first R is role.

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So before you tell AI what to do,

you have to tell it who to be, and

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this one move is gonna change the

output more than anything else.

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So think about the role.

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You need to tell it what

hat that it is wearing.

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You are a conversion copywriter.

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You are a registered dietician

who writes plain, like they're

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talking to their bestie, language.

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You are my operations project manager.

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Because without a role, AI is just going

to default to your average internet voice.

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With a role, it's going to start pulling

its knowledge from a specific lane.

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Rachel: If you ask a lawyer and

a kindergarten teacher the same

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question, you're ultimately gonna get

very different energetic response.

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You're gonna get a very different

context level of response.

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And that whole role of establishing

who it is that you're initially

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talking to with your AI conversation

is gonna set so much of the foundation

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before a single word gets written

in your prompt or in your output.

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So that little bit of context

is so incredibly powerful.

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And we say get as specified as possible.

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So you're not just a copywriter,

but you're a copywriter who writes

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for wellness practitioners or you're

not writing for corporate brands.

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Jessica: Yeah, basically you

get to describe what your

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dream employee gets to be.

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So right now I'm working on a new

employee for the lab called Bruce,

86

and I want him to be able to write

SEO and AIO optimized blog posts.

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But I'm like, you're just not

an SEO optimized expert, Bruce.

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You not only write blogs that are

good searchable, but they spark

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aha and insights and they make the

readers wanna come back for more.

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The more you describe who you want the

AI to be, the more he will fall into that

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lane and get less generic, and the more

it's gonna sound like you because you're

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describing what the ideal person would

be who you would hire to do this for you.

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Rachel: Right.

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So then once you know who it

is that we're prompting, now it

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needs to know actually what, we're

trying to get it to accomplish.

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And this is where, again,

people get super weirdly vague.

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So this brings us to our step

two, which is O, objective.

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What is the goal of the prompt?

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Jessica: Yeah, so what are you

actually trying to accomplish?

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Not just the deliverable.

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Write a caption, that's a task.

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There's a difference

between a task and a goal.

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Write a caption that gets people

to comment so it boosts this

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post's reach, that's an objective.

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Write a subject line that encourages

the user to click, that's an objective.

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So getting that specific is gonna

produce two different kind of

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outputs and really help AI start to

be able to support your business.

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Rachel: Yeah, and I think this is so

important for the business owner too, to

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really understand, it's a good practice

to have when you're saying, "What exactly

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am I asking for, and what is the end

result that I'm hoping to achieve here?"

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I think so many times people are wasting

time when it comes to AI when they

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don't even know what the output is.

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They don't know, and sometimes

it's like, "I want it to look

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like this, I want it to sound like

this, I want it to feel like this."

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All of those various components.

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And when you haven't put that thought on

the human side of this prompt, it really

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does ultimately give you a less than

favorable output because you've kind of

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skipped a lot of that step hoping that

it's gonna fill in the gaps for you, and

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I don't believe we're at that point with

AI yet where it can read your minds.

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. Jessica: Yeah, yeah.

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So for example, this morning I was

writing an email to Ashley, the

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DOERS community that we're both in.

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And at first I was like, "Hey,

help me respond to this email.

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I wanna pitch this," blah, blah, blah.

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But I hadn't taken the time to like,

what are my objectives, giving it more

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context that she actually knows me.

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So it wrote in this way which

if I would've sent it to Ashley,

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she would've been like, "What the

hell kind of robot crap is this?"

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And I was like, no, write it

like she's a business peer.

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My goal is to get her very curious

about this thing that I'm telling her

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about, and then ultimately get, you

know, be able to pitch this to her.

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So by giving it that much context,

sometimes AI does that creepy

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thing where it references the

email, but it references too much.

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Don't be a creep and be like,

"Oh, that was so funny about

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your nephew," blah, blah, blah.

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I would never say that in real life.

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So I'm just like, don't be a creep.

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Do this.

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Make it concise.

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A lot of times sometimes when I'm

giving CEOs things, Claude likes

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to be extra and give you 14 pages.

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Well, that's the next step.

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Never mind.

144

We'll, I'll save that for the next one.

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Rachel: So now that we've kind of gone

through the first two, so it knows who

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it is and it knows what it's trying to

achieve through the objective, now we have

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to make sure that it gives you something

that is actually of value and something

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you can use, which brings us to the

second O, which is step three, output.

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Jessica: Yeah, so Claude likes

to be a little bit extra.

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So if you do not tell it what you

want to get, you're gonna get a

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giant 14-page essay back every time

when all you wanted was a list.

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So you need to make sure you're specifying

the output, the format you want it in,

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because it likes to default to documents

and maybe you just want it typed back in.

154

Do you want it Notion?

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The constraints, how many

words do you want it to be?

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Do you want it to be long?

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How do you want it structured?

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How many options and what to leave out?

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So if you say, "Give me three subject

lines under eight words each," or, "Write

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four short paragraphs, no bullet points,"

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Rachel: yeah

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Jessica: Specifics here are really

gonna save you a lot of time from going

163

back and editing, and it's also gonna

save you on usage because you're not

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getting more than you actually need back.

165

Rachel: Yeah.

166

And this is something that,

everybody, regardless of your

167

industry, has best practices, right?

168

For an email marketing strategist, I

have, you know, how many characters I

169

wanna hit in my subject line, I have,

you know, the subject lines that I

170

know work really well with my clients,

and all of these various things.

171

But Claude is not a subject or email

marketing subject line expert, and

172

sometimes they can go two 200+ characters,

and you're like, "Man, nobody would ever

173

read that," all of these various things.

174

So when you tell it to keep it under

75 characters, start it with how to,

175

a list number, anything like that.

176

So many people now tell AI,

"Get rid of the em dashes."

177

Em dashes are telling it.

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Jessica: No emojis, no hashtags.

179

Rachel: Yeah, all of those things,

and it's really important to spell

180

it out exactly how you want it.

181

Tell it exactly the length of things.

182

So Jess and I, we were just, prior to this

call, auditing and optimizing our blog

183

writer, Bruce, and we were saying, "Hey,

it needs to have these components to it.

184

It needs to never do this, and make

sure that these are the proper rules

185

that it follows every single time."

186

But what's gonna be great about this

is that once we've set this, next time

187

we go to write a blog, we don't have

to reformat it and restructure it in a

188

way that we know is gonna be optimized

for our desired output, because we have

189

locked in essentially these end results,

the output of it all that we wanted.

190

So it gets us to a point of less

editing time and time again.

191

Jessica: And like I

said, AI is an employee.

192

You gotta give it feedback.

193

He's gonna get better every time.

194

The key is that you're saving

your prompts and reusing them

195

so you can optimize them more.

196

For example, every time we go to write

this podcast, he kept opening the

197

entire podcast with real talk, and

that is one of the newly banned words.

198

Do you have any specific bans on your AI?

199

Rachel: The 'quietly', God,

quietly is so obnoxious.

200

Once you see it pop up time and time again

in your outputs, and you start to see it

201

consuming the content of other people and

you're like, "I would never say that."

202

I was writing an email the other day, and

I actually did use quietly, but not in the

203

way that AI uses it, and I was like, "I

just am so jaded now, I can't say that."

204

So I had to find a different word to use.

205

But it's important to know these things

or else you're gonna have to keep auditing

206

and refining every output you get.

207

But it's gonna learn if you tell

it, "Don't do this, do this instead,

208

and this is the output that I want."

209

Jessica: All right, so

moving on to our next thing.

210

This is gonna be the one thing that is

really gonna help turn generic AI slop

211

into something that actually sounds human,

actually sounds like you specifically,

212

and that is your tone, the T.

213

Rachel: Yeah.

214

So want to hand it your voice, right?

215

And this is something that we put at

the forefront of our foundation in

216

the Life First Business Lab, where

you're building your business brain,

217

where you get your copy Bible, you

have your voice of the customer, all

218

of these things that are constantly

being referenced in your prompts.

219

You want it to know how should it sound.

220

Are you a warm, direct, a

little bit funny type of person?

221

Or are you more straight to the

point, big sister type energy?

222

All of those various things that make you

more you in your voice and all of that.

223

I could probably pick out an Ashley

email from a mile away because I know

224

how she talks, and the things that

are important for your audience, is

225

that they want you to be able to say,

yeah, that's the person that I follow.

226

That's their language.

227

That's how they speak.

228

That's how they communicate."

229

And that's a reason why there's so many

times where people go, "AI doesn't work

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for because it doesn't sound like me.

231

There's so much refinement

that I have to do on my end."

232

It's this T step, the tone step,

is the most important part.

233

Jessica: Yeah.

234

Actually when we were training the

Claude that writes our podcast and

235

really helps us with all the things in

the lab, I just took transcripts from

236

our actual Speaking Voice podcasts

and kept feeding it into Claude.

237

Actually, now he goes and automatically

pulls our transcripts and puts it in

238

there so that he can constantly be

analyzing our voice, pulling out our

239

frameworks that we like to use all

the time so that it's learning me.

240

So yeah.

241

Pro tip is paste in.

242

If you don't wanna sit there and explain

it or you don't know what you, how to

243

describe what your voice sounds like,

is go find some things that you really

244

love that you've either written or

said or do and feed it to it and say,

245

" Analyze this and match this voice."

246

Rachel: Yeah, exactly.

247

So then that brings us to the last

letter, which is S, and I think this is

248

the one that has really helped me utilize

prompts and our AI tools and stuff.

249

And it helped me kind of go

from yeah, this is a good output

250

to holy cow, did it do that?

251

How did it get me to the point

where now, I can take this, give

252

it my human touch, refine it just

barely, and then take it and go?

253

And that is step five, the specific.

254

So this is the context about your

business and really takes you from

255

where it knows the inner deep workings

of your business, why you have specific

256

offers, and it makes things way less

generic than it could possibly be.

257

So I think this is the one that I

would say is the most important.

258

Jessica: I say this all the

time, the more context you can

259

give it, the better it can be.

260

For example we just launched

the Life First Business Lab.

261

And we were able to launch

this in record time.

262

I think from the moment we had the idea

to launch was maybe a week and a half.

263

And this was setting up the product,

getting the onboarding emails, writing

264

our sales page, designing our sales

page, and it's because I had already

265

done so much pre-work with training our

Claude on everything about our business.

266

So it knew everything about our offer.

267

We had had it do some voice-of-the-client

research, so it knew everything about

268

the audience and their exact pain points.

269

It knew everything about the results that

the lab was gonna get them, and everything

270

that also made Rachel and I different,

what is our specific history, why we would

271

build this or why it's important for us.

272

And we were able to kinda

churn that out so quickly.

273

It sounds just like us.

274

We only had to go back and do a couple

of tweaks to get it there, and that's

275

really what the difference is about having

it just going, opening Chat randomly

276

and say, "Write about, you know, gut

health issues," if you're a dietician.

277

Or somebody who has taken the time to

create a copy bible in the business brain,

278

and going in there and being like, "Okay,

let's write this email to my client.

279

This is the offer I'm trying to sell."

280

It knows everything about it and kinda

spit out everything that it needs.

281

Rachel: Yeah.

282

So, I always say this when it comes to

your email list, but the same is true

283

when it comes to your AI prompts and all

of that, where it's trash in, trash out.

284

So if you are putting generic information

in and you are getting generic information

285

out, the specifics of it all is really

where the game changer is, right?

286

Where the pivotal moment of saying,

"Okay, this is something that maybe

287

I can be inspired from," and then

rewrite everything from scratch, to then

288

actually giving it the specifics and

saying, "This is exactly what I needed.

289

I just need to refine it 10%

15%," whatever the case may be.

290

So that's all five.

291

I'm gonna do a quick recap, and then

we're gonna shift into one more area.

292

So in the roots format, we have

the role, so who we want it to be.

293

Before we give it any information, we

tell it exactly who we want it to be.

294

Then we go to the objective.

295

Now that we know who it is, we

wanna tell it what it's actually

296

trying to then accomplish.

297

What's the goal?

298

Then we go into the output.

299

We want to tell it exactly what we are

looking for when we get that prompt,

300

whether it is saying, "Please do not

ever give me another Google document.

301

Give me a direct text output

and make it look like this."

302

That's what we wanna

really communicate to it.

303

Then we send it to the most important

information, or one of the most important

304

pieces, which is the tone, the portion

that takes it from sounding every person

305

on the internet that's ever used a random

prompt to actually sounding like you,

306

how it should sound warm or a little big

sister-y, all of those various things.

307

we root it into the actual specifics

in the context of your business, your

308

offers, your pricing, your audience,

exact pain points, all of that.

309

And that gives us the roots framework.

310

Jessica: So the mindset shift we want

you to walk away with is that you're

311

not bad at AI, AI doesn't suck, AI isn't

garbage, you're just under-training it.

312

So think about it.

313

You would never onboard a new hire and

expect them to create a task and output

314

it perfectly, especially if you gave it

zero context or no background or no voice.

315

So, the reframe here is AI is

not a software you operate, it

316

is a team member that you brief.

317

It's the same rules that would apply

here that would apply to a great manager.

318

You wanna make sure that you're

giving it everything that it

319

needs to set it up for success.

320

And I know what you're thinking:

"Jess, that sounds like it's gonna

321

take a lot of effing time, and I

don't have effing time to write a

322

paragraph prompt every single time."

323

And that's why you wanna make sure

that you are saving your prompts.

324

We also have a cool little tool inside

the lab called the Workflow Wizard,

325

which helps you write the prompts like

this, following the ROOTS framework.

326

So you can basically go in there and give

it a very vague of what you wanna do, your

327

short little, fast prompt, and it will

help you fill in all the gaps for what

328

you're missing so that you can then go

into your Claude and not have to waste,

329

a lot of time and credits going back and

forth trying to get it where you need.

330

Rachel: All right, so a couple of

things before we wrap up this episode.

331

First, we want you to share this one.

332

We all know the business bestie

that we all have chatted with,

333

and they're like, "I can't use AI.

334

It doesn't capture my voice."

335

We want you to share this episode

with her or him, and kind of share

336

the fix that maybe she's been missing.

337

Maybe this is the one shift that

has been missing that can help that

338

person actually use AI to a more

achievable and less frustrating manner.

339

And then second, we want you to tell

us that you are using AI, right?

340

DM us at Deeply Rooted

Business on Instagram.

341

Tell us which letter of the

ROOTS framework that you skip the

342

most, because I think it's really

likely gonna be tone or specifics.

343

And we read all of our messages.

344

You can send us an email too.

345

We love emails as well.

346

Jessica: And if you want a cheat code

for having AI do things and really become

347

a whole assistant for you, we want to

invite you to the Life First Business Lab.

348

This is where you're gonna get a

pre-trained, already on the roots AI

349

assistant that you can install in Claude.

350

Once you install it, it does a quick

little onboarding with you so it can

351

get all the context and tone about your

specific business, so that you can go in

352

and write your blog posts quicker, emails.

353

We are creating and training

new employees every single week.

354

And we know that this is such a good

product for busy small business owners

355

like ourselves, 'cause you don't

have time to be training a bunch

356

of different assistants because you

would've hired one already if you did.

357

Rachel: These are all assistants

that we use in our own business,

358

and that we've created because

they're not fluff assistants, right?

359

Sales call closer, Sana, has

been super impactful and really

360

beneficial in my business.

361

We use Bruce every single week,

every other day kind of thing.

362

So check it out.

363

The details are in the show notes.

364

It's an incredible product that

we're both very, very, very proud of.

365

So,

366

Jessica: and until next

week, we're rooting for you.