I love to read… but only non-fiction. The only fiction books I remember reading outside of a school requirement are one written by a co-worker and (embarrassingly) 50 Shades of Grey in 2012… but come on, everyone in the world was reading it 😉.
I CAN NOT get enough of books about social behavior, mindset, marketing, business, and memoirs 🤓.
I love to lose myself in people’s stories and emerge on the other side inspired to embody their characteristics. And nothing is better than a good book full of actionable tips and anecdotes that I can apply to my personal or professional life… but I’m constantly frustrated with my ability to retain all the genius gems the author shared.
Life gets busy, I dive into the next project, and just like that, I’m Dory from Finding Nemo, swimming around and forgetting everything I read less than a day ago. Until now…
When a Book Is Too Good to Forget
I recently read Mark Schaefer’s newest book, Audacious. The research was excellent, the case studies were compelling, and my highlighter was running out of ink.
In the book, Schaefer explains,
“Today’s marketing is duller than a cow eating grass–literally. Jon Evans and Andrew Morgan tested a 22-second video clip of a cow eating grass, and it had a higher emotional response than 55% of the ads in their database. They tried again with a clip of “paint drying”–the most boring scene they could imagine– and it still outranked most current advertising.”
The book tackles the current marketing crisis of painfully boring, sea of sameness content and advertising head-on, and is essentially a manual on how marketers can do better and rise above it. As I progressed through the first few chapters, I realized this information was too valuable to risk forgetting and turned to ChatGPT with a plan.
Outsourcing Memory
I took diligent notes as I read the book cover to cover, and I created my very own Audacious GPT. A tool I can turn to any time I want to take an average idea and give it a little extra oomph!
As I went through the process, I wasn’t sure how well it would work. I couldn’t wait to get to the end to test it out. I am stoked to share it exceeded my expectations.
Here’s the process to create your own:
- Start a new chat in your AI model of choice. I use ChatGPT and will reference that here.
- Take notes as you read. Speak them directly into the chat if you like. Voice mode captures raw, unfiltered context that writing sometimes misses.
- Keep everything in one chat. Capture the author’s key ideas, frameworks, formulas, and examples as you go. You will probably need multiple reading sessions. (If you have the time flexibility to read an entire book in one sitting, color me jealous.)
- Run a knowledge check. When you finish the book, ask the chat to recap the key points and frameworks. If it misses something, remind it of that detail, then rerun the summary. Repeat until the recap reflects everything you want stored. Think of it as training wheels for your GPT’s brain.
- Turn notes into GPT instructions. This is the hack. Prompt the chat to convert your notes into a set of instructions for a custom GPT. Be specific about how you want the GPT to respond, what personality it should have, and what kinds of questions it should ask you. For example: “Act like a bold creative director. Always push me one step past safe. Ask clarifying questions before answering.” Keep refining until the instructions feel like a playbook you would actually want to use.
- Finesse and publish. Refine the instructions until they feel right, then create and launch your custom GPT. If you have never created one before, YouTube has plenty of easy-to-follow tutorials.
- Test, refine, and enjoy your masterpiece. Test it, tweak as needed, and put it to work.
Meet the Audacious GPT
Now, before I give you a test drive… I encourage you to buy and read the book. Regardless of your professional title, we all work in sales and marketing. Whether you’re presenting ideas to a coworker, convincing your boss you deserve that promotion, or pushing broccoli to a toddler, you’re in sales. And a unique and compelling pitch trumps a dull one every time.
Like everything with AI, the more knowledge you have on a subject, the better you are at asking the question in a way that optimizes the output. You need to read the book. PLUS it’s full of immersive experiences, starting with the front cover.
What I enjoy most about this GPT, is hearing how others use it. Marketing friends in various industries have tried it, and hearing each vast and unique use case is fascinating. My favorite is a campaign for a bioscience company with a biopharma scientist target audience who focus on “binding assays and antibody discovery”… um what?
The audacious concept the GPT suggested for their tradeshow booth was “The Molecule You Missed” – A Scientific Cold Case Series. The booth would feature a cold case digital zine, feature mini exhibits to recreate the “forensic board”, a lab envelope with a teaser case with data and visuals, and a branded tasteful evidence envelope with “missing molecule” clues inside – which of course would peak the curiosity of other conference attendees when seen throughout the conference, driving them to come visit the company’s booth. So freakin cool.
Nothing could be farther than what I work on in my day-to-day life, and yet I was able to create a tool to reach them. That’s the power of a human + AI partnership.
Check out the Audacious GPT for yourself, regardless of your industry or profession – we all have ideas!
And please share what you spin up. I’m dying to know. Because guys… we need to do better than cows eating grass 😂
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