Some business owners just get it. Starting, running and growing a company is their jam. They seem to flow through their day making good decisions, securing deals, and spotting opportunities for growth. They view business problems as fun codes to crack and they enjoy puzzling over details. These people have high business IQ. More than common sense, this is commercial awareness meets pluck. This is an inner knowing of what’s going on and what’s going to take off.
Your business IQ develops with experience, but just because you’ve been in business a long time, doesn’t mean yours is high. Here’s how to use ChatGPT to increase your business IQ.
How to improve your business IQ with ChatGPT
Understand your why
Entrepreneurs with a high business IQ know why they do what they do. This knowledge forms a solid foundation from which they build. Without a strong sense of why, everything you create will feel unstable. Everything that crosses your path takes longer to process because you’re dealing with multiple scenarios case-by-case. Understand what gets you out of bed and keeps you going to never question a move again. Here’s the prompt for ChatGPT.
“I want to understand what motivates and drives me so I can apply the insights to my business. Imagine you are a high-level entrepreneur psychologist tasked with figuring this out. For context, the three things I would say are my biggest work achievements are: [describe your three biggest achievements]. They meant so much to me because [describe why they meant a lot]. I enjoy tackling a challenge when it has these components: [describe the components] and I become demotivated when [explain when you become demotivated]. Based on this information, can you summarize my ‘why’ in a single sentence? Please provide options for what this might be.”
Identify your traction metrics
Do you know what’s working? Can you safely say where your best customers come from, how long you spend on every marketing channel within your company, and how much each one costs per new customer? More than this, do you know how long a customer stays with you, and how this changes based on how they found you? Traction metrics hold secrets and shouldn’t be ignored. Data is a huge component of business IQ. Understand yours more using this prompt.
“My business aims to [describe your short term business goals]. The main drivers towards these goals are [explain the inputs that contribute towards hitting your goals]. Imagine you are a business analyst. Can you outline the main traction metrics applicable to my business? Include both inputs and outputs and when I should track them to check I am on target for achieving the goals.”
Identify black swans
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” Mike Tyson once said. It’s easy to run a business when things are going well, it’s less easy when unprecedented events, known as black swans, hit and there’s no blueprint for how to move forward. Business IQ means knowing what to do in any situation, but you can get a head start by asking ChatGPT what those situations might be. Ask for ChatGPT’s wildest dreams of what could go wrong and think about what you’d do should they come to pass.
“My business operates within the field of [explain your field or industry]. A black swan event is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Can you preempt some potential black swan events in my industry or in business in general, that could happen within the next decade? For each, suggest what I would do to mitigate the risk of it being detrimental.”
Find hidden performance indicators
To break records, you have to make records. Hone your business IQ by knowing the lay of the land before you take any more action. With this prompt, ChatGPT will suggest a long list of what you should track in your business. Discard any you already track and pay attention to those you don’t. Could there be something in there that would uncover opportunities for growth? Low business IQ means burying your head in the sand. High business IQ means being intentional about what you pay attention to.
“Within my business we track [outline the metrics you regularly track in your business] towards our goals of [describe your business goals]. Play the role of a business analyst tasked with digging into the data. Can you suggest any metrics that we don’t currently track that could be useful indicators of performance? For each one, explain why it could be relevant.” Follow up with “which of those do you think is the most important for us to track?” for further detail.
Create a growth strategy
How intelligent you are within the world of business doesn’t hinge on what you do now, it hinges on what you do in the future. Your success is dependent on your next few moves, but do you know what they are? By now, ChatGPT understands you and your business and is ready to help you plan the way ahead. Grow your business IQ by collecting all the options before you whittle them down to just a few. Use this prompt to find ideas you may not have thought of yourself.
“Given what you know about my business, my ‘why’, our traction metrics and hidden performance indicators, can you suggest a strategy for growth? Include potentially far-fetched ideas that we likely haven’t thought of before. Incorporate a period of testing for each idea and explain how I could test its effectiveness before continuing or moving to something else. Put the ideas in order of quickest win to most effort.”
How to become a smarter entrepreneur with ChatGPT
Develop your business IQ with these five simple prompts for ChatGPT, to set yourself up for continued success in your entrepreneurial ventures. Define your why in a single sentence, identify the metrics that make the difference, pre-empt black swans, find the hidden KPIs, and make a growth strategy for the future. You’re already smart, but you can get smarter, and this is how to make that happen.
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