May 19, 2025 • 28 mins
Ever wondered how the world's most efficient entrepreneurs are leveraging artificial intelligence? In this illuminating episode captured live at the Mindset in Action event, web design veteran Cheryl Laidlaw reveals the transformative potential of AI for small business productivity.
The conversation quickly dispels the common misconception that AI is simply ChatGPT. Cheryl, who's been building websites for 22 years, initially feared AI might take her job – then made the strategic decision to master it instead. Her candid assessment? While reports suggest AI saves business owners 30% of their time, she's actually doubled her business capacity through strategic implementation.
We explore the remarkable difference between free and paid AI services, with Cheryl detailing how she's created approximately 20 specialised AI "assistants" for different business functions. The results are astonishing – tasks that once consumed hours now take seconds. Her proposal process exemplifies this efficiency: recording client discovery calls, feeding the transcript into her custom AI assistant, and generating comprehensive proposals instantly.
The episode doesn't shy away from important considerations. Cheryl addresses sustainability concerns (every five AI prompts uses roughly the same energy as boiling a kettle), privacy implications when handling client data, and the embarrassing pitfall of publishing obviously AI-generated content without personalisation. Her practical advice emphasises that AI should complement your business toolkit, not replace your unique voice and expertise.
Ready to transform your relationship with technology and reclaim hours in your week? This episode is your practical roadmap.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Donna Eade (00:00):
You're listening to the Mindset in Action podcast,
the place to be to grow andstreamline your business.
I'm your host, donna Eade.
Let's jump into the show.
Welcome back to the podcast.
Everybody, I'm so glad to haveyou here today for this live
(00:22):
session from the Mindset inAction live event.
Today, we have Cheryl Ladlawand we are talking all about AI
in productivity.
This was a really interestingconversation because AI is
something that is relatively newto most of us, and so I hope
you enjoy it.
Do make sure that you arechecking the show notes so that
(00:44):
you can connect with Cheryl andall of the other speakers that I
had at my event.
All the links will be in theshow notes under each episode.
So we have this is the thirdone and we have three more to go
, so I hope you are excited andlet's jump in to the AI
conversation.
Welcome, thanks, I'm so excitedto have you here.
(01:04):
Conversation welcome, thanks,I'm so excited to have you here.
So this is a key, and I knowandrea likes the word community,
but I run the business womenunlimited online networking
group and we're a fabulousnetwork of women as well.
Um, and this is the power ofnetworking community.
Whatever you'd like to say,because I was looking for a
speaker to come and speak onthis particular topic and I
(01:25):
didn't know anybody personallyand I put it out to my network
and I had a few suggestions froma few people.
Thank you, judy.
And Cheryl came to me throughEnves, who's not here today, but
I'm sure many of you in theroom know her and I am so
excited to have her here.
So this is really exciting.
We are going to be talking aboutproductivity and the little
(01:46):
known beast that has crept ontoour stage recently AI.
Anybody know AI.
Anybody use it.
Anybody terrified of it?
Oh yeah, so there we go.
So we've got a bit of a mixturein the room.
So, cheryl, tell us a littlebit about what you do and who
you are.
I meant to say that the otherway around.
(02:07):
Could you tell the stumble?
That's fine.
That's fine, we'll get there.
Cheryl Laidlaw (02:10):
So for those of you that don't know me, I'm
predominantly a web designer.
I've been building websites forabout 22 years, had my own
business for 15 years and in thecrazy world of the internet, AI
came around.
Donna Eade (02:27):
Cheryl, I don't want to stop you, but we're not
going to pick that up on thepodcast.
Eat your microphone.
Cheryl Laidlaw (02:32):
There we go.
Sorry, the lovely world of theinternet AI came about in.
Well, it's been around yearsand years and years, but on the
main platform platform around2021.
So I was like shit, it's gonnatake my job because that's what
we all think, right.
(02:52):
So I made a decision that I'mgonna get behind this and uh,
start a podcast all about web3AI and just naturally just fell
into it as a result of justbeing a huge tech geek.
Donna Eade (03:11):
Love that.
So, before we get started intohow we can use AI in our
business, can you tell us whatis AI, because I think a lot of
us just think it's chat, gpt,because I think a lot of us just
think it's chat, gpt, god.
Cheryl Laidlaw (03:27):
what is AI?
It's basically a.
I don't even know how toexplain it the best.
It's a.
It's an intelligence.
I mean it's an intelligencethat we've been building for
years and years.
It actually came around in1930s and we've been building it
(03:50):
up to make it as intelligent asus for years and years and
years, and it's just basicallyinformation that's been fed into
a machine that's now a beast.
Donna Eade (04:00):
Yeah, but there's lots of different tools that we
can use.
It's not just chat, gpt, it'snot just chat I'm going to just
call it chat now.
There are other models of chat,but then there are different
softwares that integratedifferent elements of AI aren't
(04:22):
there.
So can you tell us some of thesoftwares that we may use on a
daily basis that actuallycontain AI that we might not
even realise?
That is actually?
Cheryl Laidlaw (04:30):
AI.
Well, most of every singlesoftware now has some kind of
integration of AI.
I mean even from your Zoommeetings through to obviously
Canva's got it in and probablynot long before we've got it in
Outlook.
Has that just come about?
I think in emails it has,hasn't it?
Donna Eade (04:52):
Do we still use Outlook?
Yeah, some people do Brilliant.
Cheryl Laidlaw (04:57):
So really it's everywhere.
We just don't know it, and ifwe are aware of it, then we can
make use of it yeah, which iswhat we're going to talk about
today.
Donna Eade (05:07):
So how do you actually use AI in your business
?
Cheryl Laidlaw (05:12):
I use it for absolutely every single task
because I am ADHD, dyslexic andit helps move my business.
And some say it's a bit of alazy way because I don't write
anything myself anymore.
I just whack it through AI andit just for me.
(05:34):
If there's a process, ifthere's a system to something, I
will just run with it.
So everything pretty much.
Donna Eade (05:43):
I love that.
So everything pretty much Ilove that.
(06:06):
So we were talking before andyou were talking about some of
the ways that you use it in yourbusiness and you said you use
the paid version of chat, and Idon't currently.
But after this I'm like, ohokay, so I wanted to enlighten
you.
If you didn't know, what is thedifference between the free
version and the paid version andwhy should we be looking at
using the paid version?
Cheryl Laidlaw (06:15):
so chat gpt, for example, or claude or gemini,
they all start to get to knowyou and your business, whereas
the paid version, we cancustomize it a little bit more
and chat gp, call them agents,others call it ai assistants,
but you can basically createthese small assistants that can
generate your jobs faster.
(06:35):
So I've got about 20 of themones for emails, ones for social
media, ones called fortleadership.
Another one is where, if Irecord the whole of a discovery
call, I will then put it throughmy proposal AI assistant.
So I've got about 20 differentones and, of course, you can go,
(06:56):
you can start creating them forclients and it yeah, I can't
praise it enough, to be honestwith you so give us an example.
Donna Eade (07:09):
So take your proposal one for example.
Take us through the process ofwhat that looks like, from that
initial call to how you use chat, and, and how it actually works
and saves you time okay.
Cheryl Laidlaw (07:24):
So I use a fantastic proposal, um software
called better proposals, highlyrecommend it, um, my clients
love it.
They're like, oh my god, thisis like a website.
So I've taken that setup thatI've spent years and years and
used to take a couple of hoursto do a proposal.
And I'll run that through chatgpt and say this is how I lay
(07:46):
out my proposals and say, forexample, you've got a particular
industry that you focus onmine's, medical, for example.
I would say this is theparameters that I want you to
set out at design goals, buildopportunities and software.
So I just level it all out andsay this is the perfect proposal
and you can upload several ofthose.
(08:08):
So tell ChatGPT this is a goodproposal.
Then what will happen?
I will do a Again.
This is when you have a Zoomcall with your clients.
Ask them are they happy to haveit recorded?
Because I've been in asituation where they're not
overly impressed with that andthey'll say no.
So ask them if they're happy.
(08:28):
Record the meeting Again.
You would ask them all thequestions that you normally
would on a call and you can usean additional tool that's
attached to Zoom.
There's one called Phantom andanother one called Otty or Otto
and you can use an additionaltool that's attached to Zoom.
There's one called Phantom andanother one called Otty or Otto
I can't remember Otter, otter,and it will basically record the
(08:53):
call, summarise it.
So I take the summarisation,whack it through my AI assistant
and I've got a proposal inseconds and it used to take you
two hours.
Donna Eade (09:10):
So that is one example of how that chat
assistant, that one specificchat assistant that you have
built and you've fed into itwhat is good.
This is what is good.
These are the questions that Ineed answering.
This is how I need to lay downand it does it for you, and you
have different assistants fordifferent things exactly, and
you can build them for clientsso each client could have their
(09:30):
own assistant.
So if your client particularlylikes things a certain way, you
could program the assistant todo it that way and you don't
have to think about it again andand that's the difference
between the free version.
Right, because the free versiondoesn't have such a good memory
of thinking about everything.
Is that?
Cheryl Laidlaw (09:48):
well, it does start to um, get to know you.
But if every time you have toput the same prompt in I if I
didn't have the paid version,I'd probably have a word
document full of all my promptsof I, copy paste that.
Put that in.
You know, make sure it's UKEnglish.
Make, don't use those dashes,don't use the word unlock, don't
(10:11):
use the word unleash, like youneed to give it the rules so
that people know that it's youthat's talking.
And another thing where peopleare really getting it wrong
lately um, there was a bigcompany last week, um, that sent
out their newsletter and it wasreally obviously chat gpt.
So, although it should havebeen a brand new launch,
(10:33):
everyone just went on the chatand said on the comments and
said, wow, you guys reallydidn't make any effort here.
Look at all the dashes, look atthe telltale signs of ChatGPT,
for example.
So it's really important thatyou upload your brand voice and
that could be 10 blogs that youwrote pre-2020.
Because, let's face it,anything after 2020 is a little
(10:55):
bit of chat assistant.
So I would recommend uploadingthe way that you talk, your
blogs, the way that you writeblogs, the way that you write
anything that's going to aid,basically your assistant, to
really grasp who you are andwrite in your style.
Donna Eade (11:11):
Yeah, that's brilliant.
So you're a quite a bigadvocate of taking courses for
AI rather than just, you know,having a go and seeing what it
is we were talking actuallyabout, and the reason that we
actually want to get educated onAI and and take those courses.
(11:32):
And you suggested someplatforms, so I'll let you
suggest those, but can you talkabout it in terms of one, why we
should take a course, and two,um, about the sustainability
towards it?
Cheryl Laidlaw (11:43):
yeah, I really loved that chat we had okay so
they say that every smallbusiness owner is saving 30
percent of their time, which Ithink's a lot.
I would honestly say, hand onheart, that I reckon I've
doubled my business because ofai, not 30.
And if you use it to its fullcapacity it's pretty impressive,
(12:07):
yeah, yeah.
And then the sustainability isuh.
So lots of people don't know Igrit.
I say through gritted teethbecause about every five prompts
that you put into ChatGPT it'sthe same as boiling a kettle.
It uses as much energy asboiling a kettle.
(12:29):
So what can we do?
Well, we're small businessowners.
We're probably doing a lot tooffset our energy, as is right.
We're always the ones flyingthe flag for sustainability.
They are working on greenerenergy sources so that we can
use chat gpt a little bit freer,but at the moment the advice is
(12:52):
be mindful with chat gpt or anyai, which I don't think is very
helpful.
Donna Eade (12:58):
So that's why I say it through gritted teeth,
because I love it and use it allthe time, but yet I'm ruining
the planet but one of theadvantages of having the paid
version is that you're kind ofputting all of that skill set,
all of that knowledge in at thebeginning and then it's a rinse
(13:19):
and repeat.
So rather than having to do allof those prompts again and
again and again, you've alreadygot it set up, so it's just a
one prompt, rather than havingto go oh no, I forgot to tell
you to do it in UK English.
Can you change?
Cheryl Laidlaw (13:31):
I like your thinking.
I'm not sure if that is correctbecause you still have to
prompt it, but I do like yourthinking and I think possibly
you might be right.
You might have less prompts.
Donna Eade (13:42):
Yeah, I think, because that's what I do.
I don't know about anybody else, but I'll put it in and then
I'll realize that I haven'tasked it to do UK English and
it's got zeds in everything.
So I'm like can you change thatplease?
And then I'm like oh no,actually you you've used my
wrong name, like it always.
Always puts mindset in action.
So if you ever see that that'sbecause I haven't caught it, um,
(14:02):
but I'm like no, that is not myname and that's not how I say
it.
But yeah, so all of thoselittle adjustment things which
you wouldn't have to do becauseit's already there, saves you
some prompts, ladies.
So, uh, the how much is chatgpt, the one that you were
talking?
16 pounds a month so it's not ahuge, huge price.
Um, so, and I think, given theamount that we use it and it,
(14:24):
obviously it depends on yourbusiness, but I use it almost
every day, so, uh, well worth it, well worth it.
Has anybody got any questionsfor cheryl?
And I've got one on here to ask, um, whilst we are moving, okay
, bear with me, catherine.
Have you experienced anynegatives to using?
Cheryl Laidlaw (14:45):
AI.
Well, exactly what I just saidabout people just basically
copying and pasting straightinto LinkedIn and it again.
It's so obvious.
But if you're just beingintroduced to chat GPT or Claude
or Gemini, you get overlyexcited.
You think, oh my God, this isamazing, I don't have to do
(15:06):
anything ever again.
Copy paste, copy paste, copypaste.
But it's not a copy paste tool,it's an aid.
It's just part of your toolkit.
So everyone's scared that it'sgoing to take over.
It's just part of your toolkit,just like photoshop would be,
just like canva would be, justlike any you know software that
you would be your email supplier, etc.
Etc.
It's just part of your toytoolkit.
(15:27):
So, um, that is the number onething just people copying and
pasting.
Um, we're going to get in.
In the next five years, theinternet is going to be flooded
with absolute AI bullshit really, because we've all got excited,
we've all pasted the same stuffin and it's all going to be the
(15:47):
same.
So it's going to be overrunwith the same crap because
people do not invest in theactual, real capabilities of it.
Donna Eade (16:03):
Brilliant Catherine.
Nicola Tonsager (16:07):
Is she unmuted?
When you say about taking olderblogs, do you literally copy
and paste them and just put themin where you type things in?
Do you tell it to learn from it?
How does that work?
Cheryl Laidlaw (16:23):
Yeah, so again, depending on what platform
you're using.
So, I've got a paid version ofGemini.
Okay, so you can just say thisis my tone of voice and the five
documents that I've uploaded,and then you name them
individually.
This is my tone of voice.
Always make sure you use thisstyle of writing so you tell it
(16:44):
you.
The more you tell it, the morethe outcome would be.
That's strictly not true either.
Just keep telling it gets itright.
Julia Wadrop (16:53):
No bitch, that's wrong okay, julia the first one
is have you named it and do youhave a conversation with it?
Cheryl Laidlaw (17:06):
my chat gpu is just called chat.
I had a conversation.
I said what would you like tobe called?
And then we go through thenames out.
No, don't like any of them, we,we'll just call you chat.
Okay, cheryl.
Julia Wadrop (17:26):
Oh very.
I introduced Lindsay tosomething last night and I want
you all to try it because it'slike mind-blowing Sesamecom
forward slash research.
Type it in when you go in andit's a talking AI and it's
either Maya or Mike.
Have you heard of it?
Have you go in and it's atalking ai called and it's
either maya or mike?
have you heard of it have youdone it yeah and it breathes, it
(17:47):
sighs, it talks.
You like this, honestly, try it.
It's hilarious, but I thinkwe're going to get a lot of that
, aren't we?
Cheryl Laidlaw (17:55):
again you're.
We're at a stage now where wecan duplicate ourselves and it
will feel like we are doing theZoom rooms.
People have got jobs becausethey've duplicated it using that
platform.
It's quite expensive at themoment, but it won't be for long
.
Donna Eade (18:16):
I love that.
I actually have chat on myphone and you can talk to it and
you can choose different oneson there as well.
I have that and I actually havechat on my phone and you can
talk to it and you can choosedifferent ones on there as well,
and I have conversations.
So my cat's really poorly.
What should I do?
And she's like take her to thevet.
And I was like I can't take herto the vet.
Cheryl Laidlaw (18:30):
You need to tell it that it's the vet I said I
can't take her to the vet, blah,blah, blah, blah blah, and she
was so sorry to hear that.
Donna Eade (18:41):
I can understand how that could be made and I was
just like she's my friend, youknow.
You know how you're saying.
You were lonely, andrea, Ithink a lot of us are just found
yourself a new friend.
Yeah, brilliant, okay.
Well, anybody else got anyquestions?
Oh, one at the back, please,katherine thank you.
Claire Rulton (18:59):
I was just going to say I use chat GPT quite a
lot and you were saying aboutthat.
You can set up different chats.
I use it with my partner.
He does a completely differentjob to what I do.
I'm an accountant, he's a bidwriter and it the chats work
amazing for both of us with thepaid for version, um.
But also I would say, just becareful about what you are
(19:22):
uploading because it is learningfrom you.
Now on chat gpt with the paidfor version, there is a
temporary button now and it willonly hold that information for
a certain amount of time andwon't put it on the wider
network.
So it's worth pressing thatbutton sometimes with the
information that you'reuploading, if it's confidential,
(19:43):
like a proposal, and it's gotclient names in, etc oh well,
yeah, just to add to that.
Cheryl Laidlaw (19:51):
Um, it's learning everything.
So if you're signing an NDA andyou're working with clients, do
not not use chat GPT to writeanything or do anything on there
, I would say even the temporaryone, because it's going to come
back on you.
Debbie Gilbert (20:08):
So there are things to be mindful of.
Cheryl Laidlaw (20:09):
Yeah, you really do.
I mean, it's a good point andone that we need to take
responsibility for, andeventually we'll need to have ai
policies on our website and howwe use it, because people are
going to start asking questionswhat you do with my information.
Are you putting it through ai?
Are you?
(20:30):
You know what's your policies?
So I mean you can get chat gptto write, it's fine, but, um, it
is important to think about howwe are using our information
for GDPR purposes okay wonderful, thank you very much.
Donna Eade (20:48):
Any more questions?
What?
Oh, look, you've got all thequestions.
Cheryl Becky thank you.
Becky Sanderson (20:55):
Um, I've been kind of avoiding getting on the
ai bandwagon, but it comes to apoint, as a digital designer,
that you can't avoid it anylonger.
So, yeah, I've overcome thatlittle hurdle and tentatively
making my way around chat, gptand that's as far as it's got so
far.
Um, a client of mine uses andtrains AI for academics, so in
(21:25):
her specific niche you can seehow that's really going to
accelerate and change thatindustry or that sector.
But I guess it's the sameacross many sectors.
Myself I'm a digital designer.
I publish books and help myclients to publish books on
Amazon, and one of the issueswith Amazon is obviously the use
of AI to create and write books, which people are doing and
(21:48):
getting away with and then otherpeople doing and getting their
accounts shut down becausethey've unknowingly broken the
rules.
So my question was do you seein the near future that there's
going to be any kind ofregulation around the use of ai
across the board?
Obviously, amazon's stance onit, I feel, is the right stance,
(22:11):
that they're being quite toughon it, and I think that's there
has to be that for publishing,uh, particularly as an industry.
But what?
What are your thoughts on that?
Cheryl Laidlaw (22:23):
it's a shocker, isn't it?
Because we can say we couldtake one of your beautiful logos
that you've designed or a bookdesign and say this is the new
type of the book.
I want to do it in this styledone, upload, finish and people
will do that.
People are are copying andpasting.
It's that whole copy-paste.
Everything's easy.
People will do it because theydon't want to work for it.
(22:44):
There are going to be things inplace that's going to help
prevent it.
Whether or not it's going to bebeneficial or used in the right
way, we are yet to see it.
So there's an artist at themoment that's suing open ai
because the new model that'scome out in literally the last
(23:06):
week or two, um, you canduplicate her work and you know
it's.
So it's really.
It's becoming a really popularsubject now amongst AI because
at the moment, we can still dothat.
We can do it now.
We can go to our phones now andduplicate something quite
beautiful and everyone's like,yay, I can do something in five
(23:29):
minutes.
And people always want thatEasy fix that people work really
hard for for 10 years, 20 years, and they can get it overnight.
Good point.
So it will come, but I don'tknow how effective it's going to
be.
Donna Eade (23:45):
And I would like to say that the books that you have
in your bags are all written byhand by real people that put
hours into them, so just beaware.
They're not AI books, so justbe aware they're not AI books.
Nicola Tonsager (24:00):
So I can put my natal chart into AI and it can
interpret my natal chart for me,presumably because it has
pulled that information off theweb and it's learning.
So I work with a reallyspecific approach called soul
signatures.
If I put all of thatinformation into AI over a
(24:20):
period period of time, wouldsomebody else be able to access
their soul signature informationand gain insight into their
profile, their soul signaturesprofile, or would that be
something that would be onlyavailable through my account?
Cheryl Laidlaw (24:33):
it's a good question because they're saying
that the ai models are learningfrom everyone.
Nicola Tonsager (24:40):
Yeah, it would be beneficial because then
people would be able to get aninterpretation, rather than
necessarily in an easy way,rather than necessarily always
coming to work with me or mytrainers.
Cheryl Laidlaw (24:50):
So, but it's just that was going through my
mind well, they're saying, likesomeone said, uh said, be
careful what you put in becauseit will come back.
Yeah, a question I get a lot ishow can I show up on AI if
people ask questions?
But ultimately, ai is stillgetting a lot of its information
(25:12):
from the internet.
So if you're not on theinternet, if you've not got good
SEO which is why it's all allrelevant, which is why websites
still need to be builtprofessionally seo is still
important because ai is gettingtheir information, learning from
us and learning from the crapon the internet so technically,
if you put all your soulsignatures on a website and put
(25:33):
all the information it wouldneed, it would trawl that when
somebody goes into chat and sayswhat is my soul signature?
Donna Eade (25:39):
it would go oh soul signature yeah I found that, so
it is.
Nicola Tonsager (25:42):
So that would work really well, actually,
because you know, like peopleare able to download their, for
instance, their human designchart or the natal chart, they
could download their profileinformation and then obviously
they could work with me or oneof my ambassadors if they wanted
more information or wanted togo deeper well, what you would
do is create your own assistantand then you'd put that
assistant on your website oh,something to talk about with
(26:02):
cheryl later.
Donna Eade (26:04):
Fantastic, thank you .
Did you have a question?
Debbie Gilbert (26:06):
debbie, because I've done mmc, learning the ai
qualifications with them, and Ijust wondered where you'd done
yours oh, I haven't got anofficial um certification.
Cheryl Laidlaw (26:19):
I get all my courses from udemy.
I go on youtube and I've had tolearn quick, smart if there's a
podcast coming up.
So I've had no choice.
Debbie Gilbert (26:28):
Well, I would recommend them and see learning.
So I've done both thegenerative ai and the imagery,
and it's not hugely expensive itwas about 350 quid.
Per course, it was a whole dayonline, but the great thing with
them is that you've got freeaccess to all the updates after
that.
Cheryl Laidlaw (26:45):
Yeah.
Debbie Gilbert (26:45):
And it will blow your mind what ChatGPT can do
on the paid version.
Cheryl Laidlaw (26:51):
Yeah, we're just scratching the surface really
today.
Debbie Gilbert (26:54):
Yeah, I mean there's so much you can do on it
, and do not upload personaldata without consideration,
because, yeah, that's one thingI would say.
Donna Eade (27:07):
Brilliant.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, you can turn thatone off now, babe.
Thank you, cheryl, very much.
I really appreciate you comingin today.
Thank you, really appreciateyou coming in today.
You're listening to the Mindset in Action podcast,
the place to be to grow andstreamline your business.
I'm your host, donna Eade.
Let's jump into the show.
Welcome back to the podcast.
Everybody, I'm so glad to haveyou here today for this live
(00:22):
session from the Mindset inAction live event.
Today, we have Cheryl Ladlawand we are talking all about AI
in productivity.
This was a really interestingconversation because AI is
something that is relatively newto most of us, and so I hope
you enjoy it.
Do make sure that you arechecking the show notes so that
(00:44):
you can connect with Cheryl andall of the other speakers that I
had at my event.
All the links will be in theshow notes under each episode.
So we have this is the thirdone and we have three more to go
, so I hope you are excited andlet's jump in to the AI
conversation.
Welcome, thanks, I'm so excitedto have you here.
(01:04):
Conversation welcome, thanks,I'm so excited to have you here.
So this is a key, and I knowandrea likes the word community,
but I run the business womenunlimited online networking
group and we're a fabulousnetwork of women as well.
Um, and this is the power ofnetworking community.
Whatever you'd like to say,because I was looking for a
speaker to come and speak onthis particular topic and I
(01:25):
didn't know anybody personallyand I put it out to my network
and I had a few suggestions froma few people.
Thank you, judy.
And Cheryl came to me throughEnves, who's not here today, but
I'm sure many of you in theroom know her and I am so
excited to have her here.
So this is really exciting.
We are going to be talking aboutproductivity and the little
(01:46):
known beast that has crept ontoour stage recently AI.
Anybody know AI.
Anybody use it.
Anybody terrified of it?
Oh yeah, so there we go.
So we've got a bit of a mixturein the room.
So, cheryl, tell us a littlebit about what you do and who
you are.
I meant to say that the otherway around.
(02:07):
Could you tell the stumble?
That's fine.
That's fine, we'll get there.
Cheryl Laidlaw (02:10):
So for those of you that don't know me, I'm
predominantly a web designer.
I've been building websites forabout 22 years, had my own
business for 15 years and in thecrazy world of the internet, AI
came around.
Donna Eade (02:27):
Cheryl, I don't want to stop you, but we're not
going to pick that up on thepodcast.
Eat your microphone.
Cheryl Laidlaw (02:32):
There we go.
Sorry, the lovely world of theinternet AI came about in.
Well, it's been around yearsand years and years, but on the
main platform platform around2021.
So I was like shit, it's gonnatake my job because that's what
we all think, right.
(02:52):
So I made a decision that I'mgonna get behind this and uh,
start a podcast all about web3AI and just naturally just fell
into it as a result of justbeing a huge tech geek.
Donna Eade (03:11):
Love that.
So, before we get started intohow we can use AI in our
business, can you tell us whatis AI, because I think a lot of
us just think it's chat, gpt,because I think a lot of us just
think it's chat, gpt, god.
Cheryl Laidlaw (03:27):
what is AI?
It's basically a.
I don't even know how toexplain it the best.
It's a.
It's an intelligence.
I mean it's an intelligencethat we've been building for
years and years.
It actually came around in1930s and we've been building it
(03:50):
up to make it as intelligent asus for years and years and
years, and it's just basicallyinformation that's been fed into
a machine that's now a beast.
Donna Eade (04:00):
Yeah, but there's lots of different tools that we
can use.
It's not just chat, gpt, it'snot just chat I'm going to just
call it chat now.
There are other models of chat,but then there are different
softwares that integratedifferent elements of AI aren't
(04:22):
there.
So can you tell us some of thesoftwares that we may use on a
daily basis that actuallycontain AI that we might not
even realise?
That is actually?
Cheryl Laidlaw (04:30):
AI.
Well, most of every singlesoftware now has some kind of
integration of AI.
I mean even from your Zoommeetings through to obviously
Canva's got it in and probablynot long before we've got it in
Outlook.
Has that just come about?
I think in emails it has,hasn't it?
Donna Eade (04:52):
Do we still use Outlook?
Yeah, some people do Brilliant.
Cheryl Laidlaw (04:57):
So really it's everywhere.
We just don't know it, and ifwe are aware of it, then we can
make use of it yeah, which iswhat we're going to talk about
today.
Donna Eade (05:07):
So how do you actually use AI in your business
?
Cheryl Laidlaw (05:12):
I use it for absolutely every single task
because I am ADHD, dyslexic andit helps move my business.
And some say it's a bit of alazy way because I don't write
anything myself anymore.
I just whack it through AI andit just for me.
(05:34):
If there's a process, ifthere's a system to something, I
will just run with it.
So everything pretty much.
Donna Eade (05:43):
I love that.
So everything pretty much Ilove that.
(06:06):
So we were talking before andyou were talking about some of
the ways that you use it in yourbusiness and you said you use
the paid version of chat, and Idon't currently.
But after this I'm like, ohokay, so I wanted to enlighten
you.
If you didn't know, what is thedifference between the free
version and the paid version andwhy should we be looking at
using the paid version?
Cheryl Laidlaw (06:15):
so chat gpt, for example, or claude or gemini,
they all start to get to knowyou and your business, whereas
the paid version, we cancustomize it a little bit more
and chat gp, call them agents,others call it ai assistants,
but you can basically createthese small assistants that can
generate your jobs faster.
(06:35):
So I've got about 20 of themones for emails, ones for social
media, ones called fortleadership.
Another one is where, if Irecord the whole of a discovery
call, I will then put it throughmy proposal AI assistant.
So I've got about 20 differentones and, of course, you can go,
(06:56):
you can start creating them forclients and it yeah, I can't
praise it enough, to be honestwith you so give us an example.
Donna Eade (07:09):
So take your proposal one for example.
Take us through the process ofwhat that looks like, from that
initial call to how you use chat, and, and how it actually works
and saves you time okay.
Cheryl Laidlaw (07:24):
So I use a fantastic proposal, um software
called better proposals, highlyrecommend it, um, my clients
love it.
They're like, oh my god, thisis like a website.
So I've taken that setup thatI've spent years and years and
used to take a couple of hoursto do a proposal.
And I'll run that through chatgpt and say this is how I lay
(07:46):
out my proposals and say, forexample, you've got a particular
industry that you focus onmine's, medical, for example.
I would say this is theparameters that I want you to
set out at design goals, buildopportunities and software.
So I just level it all out andsay this is the perfect proposal
and you can upload several ofthose.
(08:08):
So tell ChatGPT this is a goodproposal.
Then what will happen?
I will do a Again.
This is when you have a Zoomcall with your clients.
Ask them are they happy to haveit recorded?
Because I've been in asituation where they're not
overly impressed with that andthey'll say no.
So ask them if they're happy.
(08:28):
Record the meeting Again.
You would ask them all thequestions that you normally
would on a call and you can usean additional tool that's
attached to Zoom.
There's one called Phantom andanother one called Otty or Otto
and you can use an additionaltool that's attached to Zoom.
There's one called Phantom andanother one called Otty or Otto
I can't remember Otter, otter,and it will basically record the
(08:53):
call, summarise it.
So I take the summarisation,whack it through my AI assistant
and I've got a proposal inseconds and it used to take you
two hours.
Donna Eade (09:10):
So that is one example of how that chat
assistant, that one specificchat assistant that you have
built and you've fed into itwhat is good.
This is what is good.
These are the questions that Ineed answering.
This is how I need to lay downand it does it for you, and you
have different assistants fordifferent things exactly, and
you can build them for clientsso each client could have their
(09:30):
own assistant.
So if your client particularlylikes things a certain way, you
could program the assistant todo it that way and you don't
have to think about it again andand that's the difference
between the free version.
Right, because the free versiondoesn't have such a good memory
of thinking about everything.
Is that?
Cheryl Laidlaw (09:48):
well, it does start to um, get to know you.
But if every time you have toput the same prompt in I if I
didn't have the paid version,I'd probably have a word
document full of all my promptsof I, copy paste that.
Put that in.
You know, make sure it's UKEnglish.
Make, don't use those dashes,don't use the word unlock, don't
(10:11):
use the word unleash, like youneed to give it the rules so
that people know that it's youthat's talking.
And another thing where peopleare really getting it wrong
lately um, there was a bigcompany last week, um, that sent
out their newsletter and it wasreally obviously chat gpt.
So, although it should havebeen a brand new launch,
(10:33):
everyone just went on the chatand said on the comments and
said, wow, you guys reallydidn't make any effort here.
Look at all the dashes, look atthe telltale signs of ChatGPT,
for example.
So it's really important thatyou upload your brand voice and
that could be 10 blogs that youwrote pre-2020.
Because, let's face it,anything after 2020 is a little
(10:55):
bit of chat assistant.
So I would recommend uploadingthe way that you talk, your
blogs, the way that you writeblogs, the way that you write
anything that's going to aid,basically your assistant, to
really grasp who you are andwrite in your style.
Donna Eade (11:11):
Yeah, that's brilliant.
So you're a quite a bigadvocate of taking courses for
AI rather than just, you know,having a go and seeing what it
is we were talking actuallyabout, and the reason that we
actually want to get educated onAI and and take those courses.
(11:32):
And you suggested someplatforms, so I'll let you
suggest those, but can you talkabout it in terms of one, why we
should take a course, and two,um, about the sustainability
towards it?
Cheryl Laidlaw (11:43):
yeah, I really loved that chat we had okay so
they say that every smallbusiness owner is saving 30
percent of their time, which Ithink's a lot.
I would honestly say, hand onheart, that I reckon I've
doubled my business because ofai, not 30.
And if you use it to its fullcapacity it's pretty impressive,
(12:07):
yeah, yeah.
And then the sustainability isuh.
So lots of people don't know Igrit.
I say through gritted teethbecause about every five prompts
that you put into ChatGPT it'sthe same as boiling a kettle.
It uses as much energy asboiling a kettle.
(12:29):
So what can we do?
Well, we're small businessowners.
We're probably doing a lot tooffset our energy, as is right.
We're always the ones flyingthe flag for sustainability.
They are working on greenerenergy sources so that we can
use chat gpt a little bit freer,but at the moment the advice is
(12:52):
be mindful with chat gpt or anyai, which I don't think is very
helpful.
Donna Eade (12:58):
So that's why I say it through gritted teeth,
because I love it and use it allthe time, but yet I'm ruining
the planet but one of theadvantages of having the paid
version is that you're kind ofputting all of that skill set,
all of that knowledge in at thebeginning and then it's a rinse
(13:19):
and repeat.
So rather than having to do allof those prompts again and
again and again, you've alreadygot it set up, so it's just a
one prompt, rather than havingto go oh no, I forgot to tell
you to do it in UK English.
Can you change?
Cheryl Laidlaw (13:31):
I like your thinking.
I'm not sure if that is correctbecause you still have to
prompt it, but I do like yourthinking and I think possibly
you might be right.
You might have less prompts.
Donna Eade (13:42):
Yeah, I think, because that's what I do.
I don't know about anybody else, but I'll put it in and then
I'll realize that I haven'tasked it to do UK English and
it's got zeds in everything.
So I'm like can you change thatplease?
And then I'm like oh no,actually you you've used my
wrong name, like it always.
Always puts mindset in action.
So if you ever see that that'sbecause I haven't caught it, um,
(14:02):
but I'm like no, that is not myname and that's not how I say
it.
But yeah, so all of thoselittle adjustment things which
you wouldn't have to do becauseit's already there, saves you
some prompts, ladies.
So, uh, the how much is chatgpt, the one that you were
talking?
16 pounds a month so it's not ahuge, huge price.
Um, so, and I think, given theamount that we use it and it,
(14:24):
obviously it depends on yourbusiness, but I use it almost
every day, so, uh, well worth it, well worth it.
Has anybody got any questionsfor cheryl?
And I've got one on here to ask, um, whilst we are moving, okay
, bear with me, catherine.
Have you experienced anynegatives to using?
Cheryl Laidlaw (14:45):
AI.
Well, exactly what I just saidabout people just basically
copying and pasting straightinto LinkedIn and it again.
It's so obvious.
But if you're just beingintroduced to chat GPT or Claude
or Gemini, you get overlyexcited.
You think, oh my God, this isamazing, I don't have to do
(15:06):
anything ever again.
Copy paste, copy paste, copypaste.
But it's not a copy paste tool,it's an aid.
It's just part of your toolkit.
So everyone's scared that it'sgoing to take over.
It's just part of your toolkit,just like photoshop would be,
just like canva would be, justlike any you know software that
you would be your email supplier, etc.
Etc.
It's just part of your toytoolkit.
(15:27):
So, um, that is the number onething just people copying and
pasting.
Um, we're going to get in.
In the next five years, theinternet is going to be flooded
with absolute AI bullshit really, because we've all got excited,
we've all pasted the same stuffin and it's all going to be the
(15:47):
same.
So it's going to be overrunwith the same crap because
people do not invest in theactual, real capabilities of it.
Donna Eade (16:03):
Brilliant Catherine.
Nicola Tonsager (16:07):
Is she unmuted?
When you say about taking olderblogs, do you literally copy
and paste them and just put themin where you type things in?
Do you tell it to learn from it?
How does that work?
Cheryl Laidlaw (16:23):
Yeah, so again, depending on what platform
you're using.
So, I've got a paid version ofGemini.
Okay, so you can just say thisis my tone of voice and the five
documents that I've uploaded,and then you name them
individually.
This is my tone of voice.
Always make sure you use thisstyle of writing so you tell it
(16:44):
you.
The more you tell it, the morethe outcome would be.
That's strictly not true either.
Just keep telling it gets itright.
Julia Wadrop (16:53):
No bitch, that's wrong okay, julia the first one
is have you named it and do youhave a conversation with it?
Cheryl Laidlaw (17:06):
my chat gpu is just called chat.
I had a conversation.
I said what would you like tobe called?
And then we go through thenames out.
No, don't like any of them, we,we'll just call you chat.
Okay, cheryl.
Julia Wadrop (17:26):
Oh very.
I introduced Lindsay tosomething last night and I want
you all to try it because it'slike mind-blowing Sesamecom
forward slash research.
Type it in when you go in andit's a talking AI and it's
either Maya or Mike.
Have you heard of it?
Have you go in and it's atalking ai called and it's
either maya or mike?
have you heard of it have youdone it yeah and it breathes, it
(17:47):
sighs, it talks.
You like this, honestly, try it.
It's hilarious, but I thinkwe're going to get a lot of that
, aren't we?
Cheryl Laidlaw (17:55):
again you're.
We're at a stage now where wecan duplicate ourselves and it
will feel like we are doing theZoom rooms.
People have got jobs becausethey've duplicated it using that
platform.
It's quite expensive at themoment, but it won't be for long
.
Donna Eade (18:16):
I love that.
I actually have chat on myphone and you can talk to it and
you can choose different oneson there as well.
I have that and I actually havechat on my phone and you can
talk to it and you can choosedifferent ones on there as well,
and I have conversations.
So my cat's really poorly.
What should I do?
And she's like take her to thevet.
And I was like I can't take herto the vet.
Cheryl Laidlaw (18:30):
You need to tell it that it's the vet I said I
can't take her to the vet, blah,blah, blah, blah blah, and she
was so sorry to hear that.
Donna Eade (18:41):
I can understand how that could be made and I was
just like she's my friend, youknow.
You know how you're saying.
You were lonely, andrea, Ithink a lot of us are just found
yourself a new friend.
Yeah, brilliant, okay.
Well, anybody else got anyquestions?
Oh, one at the back, please,katherine thank you.
Claire Rulton (18:59):
I was just going to say I use chat GPT quite a
lot and you were saying aboutthat.
You can set up different chats.
I use it with my partner.
He does a completely differentjob to what I do.
I'm an accountant, he's a bidwriter and it the chats work
amazing for both of us with thepaid for version, um.
But also I would say, just becareful about what you are
(19:22):
uploading because it is learningfrom you.
Now on chat gpt with the paidfor version, there is a
temporary button now and it willonly hold that information for
a certain amount of time andwon't put it on the wider
network.
So it's worth pressing thatbutton sometimes with the
information that you'reuploading, if it's confidential,
(19:43):
like a proposal, and it's gotclient names in, etc oh well,
yeah, just to add to that.
Cheryl Laidlaw (19:51):
Um, it's learning everything.
So if you're signing an NDA andyou're working with clients, do
not not use chat GPT to writeanything or do anything on there
, I would say even the temporaryone, because it's going to come
back on you.
Debbie Gilbert (20:08):
So there are things to be mindful of.
Cheryl Laidlaw (20:09):
Yeah, you really do.
I mean, it's a good point andone that we need to take
responsibility for, andeventually we'll need to have ai
policies on our website and howwe use it, because people are
going to start asking questionswhat you do with my information.
Are you putting it through ai?
Are you?
(20:30):
You know what's your policies?
So I mean you can get chat gptto write, it's fine, but, um, it
is important to think about howwe are using our information
for GDPR purposes okay wonderful, thank you very much.
Donna Eade (20:48):
Any more questions?
What?
Oh, look, you've got all thequestions.
Cheryl Becky thank you.
Becky Sanderson (20:55):
Um, I've been kind of avoiding getting on the
ai bandwagon, but it comes to apoint, as a digital designer,
that you can't avoid it anylonger.
So, yeah, I've overcome thatlittle hurdle and tentatively
making my way around chat, gptand that's as far as it's got so
far.
Um, a client of mine uses andtrains AI for academics, so in
(21:25):
her specific niche you can seehow that's really going to
accelerate and change thatindustry or that sector.
But I guess it's the sameacross many sectors.
Myself I'm a digital designer.
I publish books and help myclients to publish books on
Amazon, and one of the issueswith Amazon is obviously the use
of AI to create and write books, which people are doing and
(21:48):
getting away with and then otherpeople doing and getting their
accounts shut down becausethey've unknowingly broken the
rules.
So my question was do you seein the near future that there's
going to be any kind ofregulation around the use of ai
across the board?
Obviously, amazon's stance onit, I feel, is the right stance,
(22:11):
that they're being quite toughon it, and I think that's there
has to be that for publishing,uh, particularly as an industry.
But what?
What are your thoughts on that?
Cheryl Laidlaw (22:23):
it's a shocker, isn't it?
Because we can say we couldtake one of your beautiful logos
that you've designed or a bookdesign and say this is the new
type of the book.
I want to do it in this styledone, upload, finish and people
will do that.
People are are copying andpasting.
It's that whole copy-paste.
Everything's easy.
People will do it because theydon't want to work for it.
(22:44):
There are going to be things inplace that's going to help
prevent it.
Whether or not it's going to bebeneficial or used in the right
way, we are yet to see it.
So there's an artist at themoment that's suing open ai
because the new model that'scome out in literally the last
(23:06):
week or two, um, you canduplicate her work and you know
it's.
So it's really.
It's becoming a really popularsubject now amongst AI because
at the moment, we can still dothat.
We can do it now.
We can go to our phones now andduplicate something quite
beautiful and everyone's like,yay, I can do something in five
(23:29):
minutes.
And people always want thatEasy fix that people work really
hard for for 10 years, 20 years, and they can get it overnight.
Good point.
So it will come, but I don'tknow how effective it's going to
be.
Donna Eade (23:45):
And I would like to say that the books that you have
in your bags are all written byhand by real people that put
hours into them, so just beaware.
They're not AI books, so justbe aware they're not AI books.
Nicola Tonsager (24:00):
So I can put my natal chart into AI and it can
interpret my natal chart for me,presumably because it has
pulled that information off theweb and it's learning.
So I work with a reallyspecific approach called soul
signatures.
If I put all of thatinformation into AI over a
(24:20):
period period of time, wouldsomebody else be able to access
their soul signature informationand gain insight into their
profile, their soul signaturesprofile, or would that be
something that would be onlyavailable through my account?
Cheryl Laidlaw (24:33):
it's a good question because they're saying
that the ai models are learningfrom everyone.
Nicola Tonsager (24:40):
Yeah, it would be beneficial because then
people would be able to get aninterpretation, rather than
necessarily in an easy way,rather than necessarily always
coming to work with me or mytrainers.
Cheryl Laidlaw (24:50):
So, but it's just that was going through my
mind well, they're saying, likesomeone said, uh said, be
careful what you put in becauseit will come back.
Yeah, a question I get a lot ishow can I show up on AI if
people ask questions?
But ultimately, ai is stillgetting a lot of its information
(25:12):
from the internet.
So if you're not on theinternet, if you've not got good
SEO which is why it's all allrelevant, which is why websites
still need to be builtprofessionally seo is still
important because ai is gettingtheir information, learning from
us and learning from the crapon the internet so technically,
if you put all your soulsignatures on a website and put
(25:33):
all the information it wouldneed, it would trawl that when
somebody goes into chat and sayswhat is my soul signature?
Donna Eade (25:39):
it would go oh soul signature yeah I found that, so
it is.
Nicola Tonsager (25:42):
So that would work really well, actually,
because you know, like peopleare able to download their, for
instance, their human designchart or the natal chart, they
could download their profileinformation and then obviously
they could work with me or oneof my ambassadors if they wanted
more information or wanted togo deeper well, what you would
do is create your own assistantand then you'd put that
assistant on your website oh,something to talk about with
(26:02):
cheryl later.
Donna Eade (26:04):
Fantastic, thank you .
Did you have a question?
Debbie Gilbert (26:06):
debbie, because I've done mmc, learning the ai
qualifications with them, and Ijust wondered where you'd done
yours oh, I haven't got anofficial um certification.
Cheryl Laidlaw (26:19):
I get all my courses from udemy.
I go on youtube and I've had tolearn quick, smart if there's a
podcast coming up.
So I've had no choice.
Debbie Gilbert (26:28):
Well, I would recommend them and see learning.
So I've done both thegenerative ai and the imagery,
and it's not hugely expensive itwas about 350 quid.
Per course, it was a whole dayonline, but the great thing with
them is that you've got freeaccess to all the updates after
that.
Cheryl Laidlaw (26:45):
Yeah.
Debbie Gilbert (26:45):
And it will blow your mind what ChatGPT can do
on the paid version.
Cheryl Laidlaw (26:51):
Yeah, we're just scratching the surface really
today.
Debbie Gilbert (26:54):
Yeah, I mean there's so much you can do on it
, and do not upload personaldata without consideration,
because, yeah, that's one thingI would say.
Donna Eade (27:07):
Brilliant.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, you can turn thatone off now, babe.
Thank you, cheryl, very much.
I really appreciate you comingin today.
Thank you, really appreciateyou coming in today.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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