187 | How I Use AI in My Coaching Business (And Where I Draw the Line)

Speaker: 00:00:00

So I know AI is a topic

that can divide people.

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Some coaches are against it, worrying

that it will replace us, and there

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are other coaches using it already,

but feeling a bit guilty about

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it, like they're cheating somehow.

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So let me tell you where I stand on this.

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I didn't grow up coding or using tech

particularly often, but honestly, I

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have embraced AI completely, and it has

genuinely changed how I run my business.

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Welcome back to Women

in the Coaching Arena.

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I'm Jo Lott, and today I'm going

to show you exactly how I use AI

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in my coaching business, and more

importantly, where I draw the line.

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I think there's a massive difference

between using AI to replace your

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coaching and using AI to support

everything around your work.

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And once you see that distinction,

this whole topic gets a lot less scary.

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Here are five ways I use

AI in my coaching business.

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Number one is content drafting.

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I can take the topic for my podcast

episode, put it into an AI tool,

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and get a first draft in minutes.

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And now this is the important part.

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I would never do anything as it was.

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I would then feed it my voice, ask

it to ask me questions on the topic

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so it's actually me, and weaves in

everything that I would want to share.

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But having a structure to work from

instead of staring at a blank page

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will save you hours every single week.

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Second is social media repurposing.

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Once I record a podcast, I

repurpose it in many, many ways.

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The first one is a blog on my website, so

that brings in the SEO traffic to my site.

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Next up, I do a LinkedIn article

each week with the content

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and make it into an article.

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Finally, I will use it for social media

content and also for my weekly email.

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So that's several pieces of content

from that one piece of deep content.

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Next up, I use it for organization

and admin, so things like recording

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my Zoom calls and things that aren't

coaching but take up half of your

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week, like maybe brainstorming

how to put your workshop structure

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together, or essentially anything else

that's on my mind I will use AI for.

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And I will share with you in a bit my

latest AI tool, which is revolutionary.

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Next up is research.

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So when I'm preparing for a workshop

or a new topic, AI is really good

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for researching how the market is

changing, maybe what studies are

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out there now that I can bring in to

make my workshop really stand out.

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And finally, AI is inbuilt

into so many other things now.

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So for example, in my podcast

editing or case study editing, I

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use Descript, and you can hit studio

sound, you can hit remove retakes,

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and different things to make editing

my case studies much, much quicker.

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Sometimes having things like Fathom in

your calls can be really useful because

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it's great for the client because they

get a recording and an AI note of their

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call, but it also can be great for

you to create content from afterwards.

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I have a funny story about when I thought

it was the perfect time to have Fathom

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in the room, and one of my clients on the

call said she made £25,000 in the last

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three months since joining the program.

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Fathom was there recording it.

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I was like, "Oh, I wonder if she would

let me use that as a testimonial."

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But I contacted her and said, "Could

I use this tiny script from our call?"

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And she replied saying,

"My hair looks a mess.

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I don't like the way I'm moving my hands."

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So sometimes you can't use

those things without checking

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with people, so always be sure.

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Just make sure that you do check in with

your client and don't use things that

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aren't meant to be used in that way.

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Don't do this with AI.

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So don't get AI to write your posts and

put them out unedited without any of

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your personal voice, your perspective,

and your stories, because your audience

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can tell, and people follow you for you.

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So yes, use AI to make it quicker,

but make sure you take a bit more

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time to make it feel like you.

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Otherwise, people will notice

and they will disengage.

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It's really hard to do when we are

limited for time, I totally hear you,

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and one thing I try and do is read it

out loud, which will really highlight

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to you where you wouldn't say certain

words and how you can change things

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to make them sound more like you.

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Another thing I'm getting much stricter

on is not using AI for my actual thinking.

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I've noticed with lots of clients

lately that they are getting less

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and less able to trust their own

judgment and make their own decisions.

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So maybe they come to me saying,

"Well, ChatGPT thinks this.

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Like, what do you think?"

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And you can really easily end

up losing your own opinion.

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So we're asking much more questions

than we've ever done in my program

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right now to help you develop the

actual skill of a business owner really

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thinking what do you think, and actually

making a decision one way or another

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without asking AI if it's a good idea.

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So think of it like a really good

assistant that can draft your emails,

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organize your diary, research topics.

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But always check what it gives you, just

like you would if you had an assistant.

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So now let's talk about the

actual tools that you can use.

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So for content, you can

use ChatGPT or Claude.

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I use both and I have paid plans for both.

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I'm only just moving back over to

Claude because people are saying

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it's obviously taking everything by

storm, and it has amazing features.

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I think so far I like Claude

for writing, and I still like

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ChatGPT for quick replies.

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I don't know if it's just my computer

or something, but Claude is just nowhere

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near as speedy and as well thought

through and strategic as ChatGPT.

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That's my learning so far, but I

constantly go in between the two of them.

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For meeting notes, I use Fathom,

which I've told you about already.

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It just automatically

enters my meeting room.

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It comes with notes afterwards as

well as the recording, and it's just

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really quick to share afterwards.

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For transcription and repurposing,

tools like Descript can give you the

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transcript from a call or whatever it

is you're doing, and then you can turn

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that into other content automatically.

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But my most favorite tool at the

moment is an AI agent called Victor.

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I have only just signed up with

Victor a week or so ago, but

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it is utterly revolutionary.

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It will connect into all of your other

apps, so for example, my Fathom, my

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LinkedIn, my Instagram, my Xero for

my accounts, my YouTube channel,

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absolutely everything, and it will

actually log in and do the work for me.

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So for example, I can say,

"Review my YouTube channel.

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What do I need to do differently?"

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And it will tell me all the things.

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Usually with other AI, I go, "Great," like

I've got like 10 hours of work to do here.

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With Victor, I can say, "Great,

log in and take those actions."

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So it will log into my YouTube,

change the titles where necessary, add

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tags, do whatever it needs to do to

optimize that channel in 20 minutes.

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Other things that it's done for

me recently are looking at all of

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the data I have in my business.

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So for example, my clients fill in an CEO

scorecard each six weeks- And so it could

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look at the data over years and start

telling me what people's scores were when

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they first came to work with me, what

scores they were when they left working

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with me, and you could really see what

their top areas were they'd improved in.

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So shout-out to Caroline, who was

my most improved client recently,

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and her top area now, going from a

zero to a 10, is now sales, which

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is exactly what you want as a coach.

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So Victor is going to completely change

my life, so I would highly recommend.

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I will share, actually, in the show

notes or in the description, a link

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which will get you 10,000 free credits.

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That lasted me about two or three weeks.

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Depends on your usage, but

it's so worth giving it a try.

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It does work through Slack, so you need

to set up a Slack workspace, but that's

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free to do, so I'll share more in the

show notes, and you can check it out.

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Here's how I use AI to support my

coaching community Now I have Victor

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in my world and in my Slack group.

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He can also use all of the knowledge I

have over five-plus years of Zoom calls,

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all of my replies in Slack over the

years, and he can reply to clients for me.

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And fine, I will still check it and

reply afterwards, but the best thing

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with Victor is he's instant, so they

don't have to wait until I'm back from

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seeing a client or whatever it is.

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They can get a quick reply knowing

that it's really in-depth, and Victor

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knows everything I've said on all of

my podcast episodes, on all of our

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Zoom calls, and things like that.

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So it's, like, super intuitive.

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None of this replaces your coaching,

but it does give you and your clients a

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head start to support exactly when they

need it, and that's really valuable.

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So for example, it used to

take clients months to create

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their signature coaching offer.

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Now I have an embedded bot in my portal

which will help them come up with a first

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draft to then share with me, which helps

our process be so much quicker, versus

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them give me a terrible first draft and us

have to go back and forth again and again.

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So there are ways of using AI to support

your clients even in the delivery.

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I've had another client who created a

decision-making bot, so between sessions,

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if her clients are stuck on anything and

unable to make a decision of some sort,

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it will talk them through, in her own

coaching language, questions that will

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help them to figure out their right path.

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So don't be scared of experimenting

and seeing what bits it's helpful for

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and what bits it isn't helpful for.

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So like I mentioned, I will pop a link

in the description where you can try

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Victor with a ton of free credits if

you want to see how amazing he is,

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but don't say I didn't warn you that

this is going to change your life.

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There are some other ways that AI can

help as well, like automated onboarding.

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I know one of my clients has

managed to use Claude for automated

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onboarding, so I'm super interested

to learn more about that from him.

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Other people are using it to summarize

their notes or maybe analyzing

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feedback forms and surveys so you can

start to spot trends without looking

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at hundreds of responses manually.

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I have just taken on an AI expert

in the Business of Coaching program.

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Her name is Cathy, and she is going to

be doing a session for us Each month,

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or each six weeks perhaps, 'cause I

do term time only calls, and really

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teaching us what AI can do for us.

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'Cause I think that's the biggest

challenge really, that we actually

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don't know what we don't know.

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So I'm really excited that she's gonna

be an in-house AI expert just helping

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us see what we could do with AI.

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That doesn't mean we have to do it,

but it's good to be informed as to

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what we could do to save our time.

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So let's leave you with

something important.

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The coaches who will thrive in the next

five years are the ones who use AI to

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handle the stuff that doesn't need a

human touch, so they can bring even

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more human touch to the things that do.

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So for example, I may have chatbots

and things, but I send Loom reviews,

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so video reviews, of all of my clients'

work after the chatbot, because it, it

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is only a chatbot, and it's never gonna

replace confidence they get when someone

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with huge experience reviews their work

and gives them encouragement as well.

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So do use the time that you save in

the admin to add more human touch

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to every single thing that you do.

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So that is your opportunity really

here, is not to be less human,

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but to get the admin done so you

can actually be more human with

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better support behind the scenes.

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Let's quickly cover what

you might be worried about.

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For example, will AI

replace me as a coach?

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I would just say that every

professional uses tools.

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A surgeon uses technology now.

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A therapist maybe uses assessment tools.

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An architect now uses software.

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So using AI doesn't make you less of

a coach any more than using a laptop

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will make you less of a writer.

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It's just a tool to help your life.

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What actually makes you a great coach

is your presence, your intuition,

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your humanness, your ability to

hold space for others, and AI can't

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replicate that, and it doesn't need to.

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So here is one thing you could do

this week, which I did just yesterday

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to prepare for this podcast, which

is ask AI to interview you about-

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Everything to do with your niche.

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So for example, it asked me,

"Where exactly did you get

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your first five clients?"

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So instead of me create generic

content of like, "Here's how you

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can create your first five clients,"

instead I can say, "Here's how

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I got my first paying clients."

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And that's more grounded in

experience than generic stuff.

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So ask AI to get your stories out of

you, then it will learn your voice.

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So for example, I voice noted all of mine.

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And do try Victor.

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It's the best tool I've ever

used, hands down, in my business.

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So like I mentioned, I will share a

link in the show notes if you want

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to try it for a few weeks for free.

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See you next week, and like I always

say, trust yourself, believe in

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yourself, and be the wise gardener

who keeps on watering the seeds.

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Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone):

Thank you so much for listening to this

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episode of Women in the Coaching Arena.

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I have a mess of free resources on

my website joannalottcoaching.com.

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That's Joanna with an A

and Lott with two T's.

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joannalottcoaching.com.

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And I'll also put links in the show notes.

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Let me know if you found

this episode useful.

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Share it with a friend and

leave me a review, and I will

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personally thank you for that.

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Remember to trust yourself, believe

in yourself and be the wise Gardner

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who keeps on watering the seed.

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Get into the arena dare, greatly and try.

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