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

• 0:00
  So I know AI is a topic that can divide people.
• 0:04
  Some coaches are against it, worrying that it will replace us, and there are other coaches using it already, but feeling a bit guilty about it, like they're cheating somehow.
• 0:15
  So let me tell you where I stand on this.
• 0:18
  I didn't grow up coding or using tech particularly often, but honestly, I have embraced AI completely, and it has genuinely changed how I run my business.
• 0:29
  Welcome back to Women in the Coaching Arena.
• 0:32
  I'm Jo Lott, and today I'm going to show you exactly how I use AI in my coaching business, and more importantly, where I draw the line.
• 0:41
  I think there's a massive difference between using AI to replace your coaching and using AI to support everything around your work.
• 0:50
  And once you see that distinction, this whole topic gets a lot less scary.
• 0:55
  Here are five ways I use AI in my coaching business.
• 0:59
  Number one is content drafting.
• 1:01
  I can take the topic for my podcast episode, put it into an AI tool, and get a first draft in minutes.
• 1:09
  And now this is the important part.
• 1:11
  I would never do anything as it was.
• 1:14
  I would then feed it my voice, ask it to ask me questions on the topic so it's actually me, and weaves in everything that I would want to share.
• 1:25
  But having a structure to work from instead of staring at a blank page will save you hours every single week.
• 1:32
  Second is social media repurposing.
• 1:34
  Once I record a podcast, I repurpose it in many, many ways.
• 1:39
  The first one is a blog on my website, so that brings in the SEO traffic to my site.
• 1:45
  Next up, I do a LinkedIn article each week with the content and make it into an article.
• 1:52
  Finally, I will use it for social media content and also for my weekly email.
• 1:57
  So that's several pieces of content from that one piece of deep content.
• 2:03
  Next up, I use it for organization and admin, so things like recording my Zoom calls and things that aren't coaching but take up half of your week, like maybe brainstorming how to put your workshop structure together, or essentially
• 2:22
  anything else that's on my mind I will use AI for.
• 2:26
  And I will share with you in a bit my latest AI tool, which is revolutionary.
• 2:31
  Next up is research.
• 2:33
  So when I'm preparing for a workshop or a new topic, AI is really good for researching how the market is changing, maybe what studies are out there now that I can bring in to make my workshop really stand
• 2:49
  out.
• 2:49
  And finally, AI is inbuilt into so many other things now.
• 2:54
  So for example, in my podcast editing or case study editing, I use Descript, and you can hit studio sound, you can hit remove retakes, and different things to make editing my case studies much, much quicker.
• 3:08
  Sometimes having things like Fathom in your calls can be really useful because it's great for the client because they get a recording and an AI note of their call, but it also can be great for you to create
• 3:22
  content from afterwards.
• 3:24
  I have a funny story about when I thought it was the perfect time to have Fathom in the room, and one of my clients on the call said she made £25,000 in the last three months since joining the
• 3:38
  program.
• 3:39
  Fathom was there recording it.
• 3:41
  I was like, "Oh, I wonder if she would let me use that as a testimonial."
• 3:45
  But I contacted her and said, "Could I use this tiny script from our call?"
• 3:52
  And she replied saying, "My hair looks a mess.
• 3:54
  I don't like the way I'm moving my hands."
• 3:56
  So sometimes you can't use those things without checking with people, so always be sure.
• 4:02
  Just make sure that you do check in with your client and don't use things that aren't meant to be used in that way.
• 4:10
  Don't do this with AI.
• 4:12
  So don't get AI to write your posts and put them out unedited without any of your personal voice, your perspective, and your stories, because your audience can tell, and people follow you for you.
• 4:26
  So yes, use AI to make it quicker, but make sure you take a bit more time to make it feel like you.
• 4:35
  Otherwise, people will notice and they will disengage.
• 4:38
  It's really hard to do when we are limited for time, I totally hear you, and one thing I try and do is read it out loud, which will really highlight to you where you wouldn't say certain words and
• 4:52
  how you can change things to make them sound more like you.
• 4:56
  Another thing I'm getting much stricter on is not using AI for my actual thinking.
• 5:02
  I've noticed with lots of clients lately that they are getting less and less able to trust their own judgment and make their own decisions.
• 5:11
  So maybe they come to me saying, "Well, ChatGPT thinks this.
• 5:15
  Like, what do you think?"
• 5:16
  And you can really easily end up losing your own opinion.
• 5:22
  So we're asking much more questions than we've ever done in my program right now to help you develop the actual skill of a business owner really thinking what do you think, and actually making a decision one way or
• 5:36
  another without asking AI if it's a good idea.
• 5:40
  So think of it like a really good assistant that can draft your emails, organize your diary, research topics.
• 5:46
  But always check what it gives you, just like you would if you had an assistant.
• 5:52
  So now let's talk about the actual tools that you can use.
• 5:55
  So for content, you can use ChatGPT or Claude.
• 5:59
  I use both and I have paid plans for both.
• 6:03
  I'm only just moving back over to Claude because people are saying it's obviously taking everything by storm, and it has amazing features.
• 6:12
  I think so far I like Claude for writing, and I still like ChatGPT for quick replies.
• 6:19
  I don't know if it's just my computer or something, but Claude is just nowhere near as speedy and as well thought through and strategic as ChatGPT.
• 6:28
  That's my learning so far, but I constantly go in between the two of them.
• 6:33
  For meeting notes, I use Fathom, which I've told you about already.
• 6:37
  It just automatically enters my meeting room.
• 6:39
  It comes with notes afterwards as well as the recording, and it's just really quick to share afterwards.
• 6:45
  For transcription and repurposing, tools like Descript can give you the transcript from a call or whatever it is you're doing, and then you can turn that into other content automatically.
• 6:58
  But my most favorite tool at the moment is an AI agent called Victor.
• 7:04
  I have only just signed up with Victor a week or so ago, but it is utterly revolutionary.
• 7:11
  It will connect into all of your other apps, so for example, my Fathom, my LinkedIn, my Instagram, my Xero for my accounts, my YouTube channel, absolutely everything, and it will actually log in and do the work for me.
• 7:28
  So for example, I can say, "Review my YouTube channel.
• 7:32
  What do I need to do differently?"
• 7:33
  And it will tell me all the things.
• 7:35
  Usually with other AI, I go, "Great," like I've got like 10 hours of work to do here.
• 7:41
  With Victor, I can say, "Great, log in and take those actions."
• 7:46
  So it will log into my YouTube, change the titles where necessary, add tags, do whatever it needs to do to optimize that channel in 20 minutes.
• 7:57
  Other things that it's done for me recently are looking at all of the data I have in my business.
• 8:03
  So for example, my clients fill in an CEO scorecard each six weeks- And so it could look at the data over years and start telling me what people's scores were when they first came to work with me, what
• 8:17
  scores they were when they left working with me, and you could really see what their top areas were they'd improved in.
• 8:24
  So shout-out to Caroline, who was my most improved client recently, and her top area now, going from a zero to a 10, is now sales, which is exactly what you want as a coach.
• 8:39
  So Victor is going to completely change my life, so I would highly recommend.
• 8:45
  I will share, actually, in the show notes or in the description, a link which will get you 10,000 free credits.
• 8:53
  That lasted me about two or three weeks.
• 8:56
  Depends on your usage, but it's so worth giving it a try.
• 9:00
  It does work through Slack, so you need to set up a Slack workspace, but that's free to do, so I'll share more in the show notes, and you can check it out.
• 9:10
  Here's how I use AI to support my coaching community Now I have Victor in my world and in my Slack group.
• 9:18
  He can also use all of the knowledge I have over five-plus years of Zoom calls, all of my replies in Slack over the years, and he can reply to clients for me.
• 9:31
  And fine, I will still check it and reply afterwards, but the best thing with Victor is he's instant, so they don't have to wait until I'm back from seeing a client or whatever it is.
• 9:43
  They can get a quick reply knowing that it's really in-depth, and Victor knows everything I've said on all of my podcast episodes, on all of our Zoom calls, and things like that.
• 9:54
  So it's, like, super intuitive.
• 9:56
  None of this replaces your coaching, but it does give you and your clients a head start to support exactly when they need it, and that's really valuable.
• 10:07
  So for example, it used to take clients months to create their signature coaching offer.
• 10:13
  Now I have an embedded bot in my portal which will help them come up with a first draft to then share with me, which helps our process be so much quicker, versus them give me a terrible first draft
• 10:28
  and us have to go back and forth again and again.
• 10:31
  So there are ways of using AI to support your clients even in the delivery.
• 10:37
  I've had another client who created a decision-making bot, so between sessions, if her clients are stuck on anything and unable to make a decision of some sort, it will talk them through, in her own coaching language, questions that
• 10:53
  will help them to figure out their right path.
• 10:57
  So don't be scared of experimenting and seeing what bits it's helpful for and what bits it isn't helpful for.
• 11:05
  So like I mentioned, I will pop a link in the description where you can try Victor with a ton of free credits if you want to see how amazing he is, but don't say I didn't warn you that
• 11:15
  this is going to change your life.
• 11:17
  There are some other ways that AI can help as well, like automated onboarding.
• 11:22
  I know one of my clients has managed to use Claude for automated onboarding, so I'm super interested to learn more about that from him.
• 11:31
  Other people are using it to summarize their notes or maybe analyzing feedback forms and surveys so you can start to spot trends without looking at hundreds of responses manually.
• 11:43
  I have just taken on an AI expert in the Business of Coaching program.
• 11:48
  Her name is Cathy, and she is going to be doing a session for us Each month, or each six weeks perhaps, 'cause I do term time only calls, and really teaching us what AI can do for us.
• 12:00
  'Cause I think that's the biggest challenge really, that we actually don't know what we don't know.
• 12:06
  So I'm really excited that she's gonna be an in-house AI expert just helping us see what we could do with AI.
• 12:15
  That doesn't mean we have to do it, but it's good to be informed as to what we could do to save our time.
• 12:22
  So let's leave you with something important.
• 12:25
  The coaches who will thrive in the next five years are the ones who use AI to handle the stuff that doesn't need a human touch, so they can bring even more human touch to the things that do.
• 12:38
  So for example, I may have chatbots and things, but I send Loom reviews, so video reviews, of all of my clients' work after the chatbot, because it, it is only a chatbot, and it's never gonna replace confidence they
• 12:53
  get when someone with huge experience reviews their work and gives them encouragement as well.
• 12:59
  So do use the time that you save in the admin to add more human touch to every single thing that you do.
• 13:07
  So that is your opportunity really here, is not to be less human, but to get the admin done so you can actually be more human with better support behind the scenes.
• 13:18
  Let's quickly cover what you might be worried about.
• 13:21
  For example, will AI replace me as a coach?
• 13:25
  I would just say that every professional uses tools.
• 13:29
  A surgeon uses technology now.
• 13:32
  A therapist maybe uses assessment tools.
• 13:35
  An architect now uses software.
• 13:38
  So using AI doesn't make you less of a coach any more than using a laptop will make you less of a writer.
• 13:46
  It's just a tool to help your life.
• 13:48
  What actually makes you a great coach is your presence, your intuition, your humanness, your ability to hold space for others, and AI can't replicate that, and it doesn't need to.
• 14:01
  So here is one thing you could do this week, which I did just yesterday to prepare for this podcast, which is ask AI to interview you about- Everything to do with your niche.
• 14:14
  So for example, it asked me, "Where exactly did you get your first five clients?"
• 14:21
  So instead of me create generic content of like, "Here's how you can create your first five clients," instead I can say, "Here's how I got my first paying clients."
• 14:33
  And that's more grounded in experience than generic stuff.
• 14:38
  So ask AI to get your stories out of you, then it will learn your voice.
• 14:43
  So for example, I voice noted all of mine.
• 14:45
  And do try Victor.
• 14:47
  It's the best tool I've ever used, hands down, in my business.
• 14:51
  So like I mentioned, I will share a link in the show notes if you want to try it for a few weeks for free.
• 14:57
  See you next week, and like I always say, trust yourself, believe in yourself, and be the wise gardener who keeps on watering the seeds.
• 15:05
  Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone): Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Women in the Coaching Arena.
• 15:10
  Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone): I have a mess of free resources on my website joannalottcoaching.com.
• 15:17
  Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone): That's Joanna with an A and Lott with two T's.
• 15:20
  Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone): joannalottcoaching.com.
• 15:23
  Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone): And I'll also put links in the show notes.
• 15:26
  Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone): Let me know if you found this episode useful.
• 15:29
  Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone): Share it with a friend and leave me a review, and I will personally thank you for that.
• 15:35
  Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone): Remember to trust yourself, believe in yourself and be the wise Gardner who keeps on watering the seed.
• 15:42
  Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone): Get into the arena dare, greatly and try.