Answered: How should I think about hiring my first employee?

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 19:02:29 +0000

When I first hired someone, I tried to find an assistant who could help me with everything. But it was hard to train them and I kept thinking it was easier to do it myself. So then I made a list of the tasks I really didn't like or felt like they were wasting my time and found someone who could do many of those things. Because the tasks were better defined, I was actually able to start with a remote virtual assistant, which wasn't very expensive. It saved me time and took away a lot of the things that were bogging me down, so I felt much more productive

Answered: Are using AI for day-to-day work?

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 19:50:42 +0000

Hi Stacey,

I've been using AI in my business for a few years now - for context I have a direct-to-consumer company selling fine shortbread & savory snacks where I've expanded into more wholesale business. In addition to my primary business I also do some private consulting work, food styling and recipe development.

I use Claude.AI as I've found it to have a writerly voice that I like (I started originally a few years back using ChatGPT but find Claude better for items that require the softer skills like writing copy and handling customer service inquiries).

What I use it for:

Drafting and responding to initial business inquiries - I have since saved a lot of these initial responses in a document draft that I can just now plug and send to quickly respond to things that I often get asked
Responding to customer service inquiries - AI has helped immensely come up with some quick solutions to issues that folks I work with encounter - whether thats a simple "where is my package" or a more complex - I simply download the email chain, feed it into the AI, add a little context and then refine my response
Responding to difficult clients - I used to get so thrown off when I had a challenging exchange with a client, it's hard not to take things personally, but now I actually just download those email chains, drop them into AI and respond from there - for instance I had a client who was really dragging their feet earlier this year and then showed up to the table ready to take me up on something that I could no longer deliver because of the timeline - in the past responding to them would have taken me hours and I would have probably given so many concessions - instead I once again put the email chain into Claude, gave a little extra context, said what I was willing and not willing to concede on and was able to get an email out within a half hour or less
Drafting marketing plans, emails, etc.
Writing or drafting initial action plans - this has been great for my business or individual client work - I often have AI help me generate an initial framework when I begin working with someone new or a new project, then I flesh it out, and feed it back into AI and go back and forth that way to refine it
Writing job descriptions for hiring

I'm sure there are other ways that I'm using it! But these are the ones that come immediately to mind and have been most helpful in cutting down time. I also think I'm way faster at responding to inquiries, which is great because a lot of times in freelance it does feel like it's all about hitting the timing!

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Answered: How should I think about hiring my first employee?

Answered: Are using AI for day-to-day work?