MBA2663 Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Start Learning About AI?

0:00If you've been feeling behind when it comes to AI, you're not alone. Today's question comes from Jackie, who runs an online business teaching people how to manage Airbnb properties. Jackie says, I'm not very knowledgeable about AI, but I understand it's becoming important fast. Where do I start and how do I actually learn and use this? Jackie, I love this question because if you're an online business owner in 2025, AI is no longer optional. It's a force multiplier. It can give you back time, improve your content, and help you make better decisions. But here's the best part. You don't need to know how it works under the hood to start using it and benefiting from it.

0:38Just like you don't need to be a mechanic to drive a car. You don't need to be a machine learning expert to use AI effectively in your business. Today, I'm going to show you exactly how to get started with simple, easy steps and how to make it a part of your everyday workflow.

0:59Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business. Your first move is to pick one AI tool and use it daily. There's a lot of options out there. I'm telling you, there's a lot of different models and a lot of different choices out there. But to keep it simple, I'm going to give you two choices. One is ChatGBT by OpenAI. I recommend the plus version because it gives you more of the more advanced models like GPT-4. It's significantly better than the free model that you get with a free plan.

1:37Or you can use Claude by Anthropic, another great option. Either one works. Just pick one and don't hop between tools at first. The more you use one, the better results you're going to get. One of the biggest hacks I can give you is to change your mindset about AI. You want to use AI like it's an intern who's super fast and never complains. Okay, here's how to make it a habit. Every day, give it one small task related to your business. Need a YouTube title? Ask it for some ideas. Need help writing an Instagram caption? Ask it. Got a blog post idea but don't know where to start? Ask for an outline.

2:18Give it some information and it will give you a pretty decent outline. Want to improve your Airbnb course sales page? Take a screenshot, paste it, and ask for critique. It's incredibly powerful. The key is, though, that you use it consistently. One small task every single day. Step two, you want to use a prompt formula that I invented called the COAST formula. I created this structure called COAST. It's an acronym, C-O-A-S-T. You can use that acronym to write better prompts. The reason why this acronym is very powerful is because you're going to get very specific about what you want so you get a better result.

2:55Think about it like ordering from a restaurant. You don't just tell them, bring me food, right? Because they can bring you anything for the menu. But if you want steak, then you want to be as specific as possible. Like, bring me a sirloin steak that's medium rare with a side of chips and salad and peppercorn sauce. Now we're getting somewhere. So here's what COAST stands for, okay? And this is how you're going to structure your prompts. The first initial thing you put in the chat box in ChatGBT or with Claude. The first letter is C and it's context. Okay. What's the situation? Who are you? Okay.

3:33What are you doing? Okay. O is objective. What do you want to achieve? A is action. What should the AI do exactly? S is style, the tone, the voice, the format. Do you want it to be funny, professional? Do you want a list? Do you want an email format? And lastly, T is target. Who is it for? What kind of reader or viewer or audience member is this for? So let me give you a real example from Jackie's business, okay, that you can use the coast method or coast formula. Let's say, for example, you want help writing an email for your Airbnb course, a marketing email, you could say, write me a promo email for my course, okay, but you're gonna get a very generic response from the AI because it doesn't know anything about your course.

4:15But let's use the coast formula instead. I would prompt the AI with, I teach people how to run successful Airbnb listings. I want to write a promo email to sell my beginner course. Write an email that introduces the course and ends with a strong CTA to buy. Make the tone friendly, but professional. The reader is a first time Airbnb host who is overwhelmed and wants step-by-step guidance or a plan. Boom. You're going to get dramatically different outputs when you use the COAST method. The better your prompt, the better the results. And that's the secret of AI. And soon, because you're doing this every day, you'll get faster at prompting without needing to remember the full acronym.

5:02Step three, create a list of 10 everyday tasks you can outsource to AI. This is a game changer. I want you to sit down and write down a list of 10 tasks you do regularly in your business that you don't enjoy or take very long, right? That take too much of your time. Here are some examples most online businesses like Jackie's can relate to or might find on their list. Number one, writing headlines for content. Number two, writing subject lines for emails. Number three, repurposing video scripts into an Instagram caption. Number four, writing a lesson summary for your course. Number five, creating a quiz or a worksheet from your course.

5:44Number six, turning a testimonial into a story. Number seven, generating FAQs for sales pages. Number eight, summarizing a podcast episode into a blog post. Number nine, drafting responses to customer support emails. And number 10, creating a new lead magnet for your product. Once you have your list, aim to hand one or two of these to AI every single day. You don't have to replace everything you do. You just need to delegate the things that are time-consuming, that don't really generate a lot of money, and things that you don't enjoy. And when it comes to the things you do enjoy, AI can become your first draft partner or brainstorming buddy.

6:23Step four, don't fear the tech. It's getting easier. Jackie, I get it. AI can feel intimidating. but here's something that no one tells you or doesn't tell beginners. The tools are getting easier week by week. At the beginning, it was quite hard to understand how to use these things. Now, it's just basically type what you want in a box. I used to have to use certain tools that are quite complicated to fix certain things in my code and my website. I like to do a little tinkering when it comes to web development. Now, there are AI tools that allow you to just write whatever you want and the code just pops out and it just generates whatever you need on your website.

7:05Pretty cool. You don't need plugins. You don't need fancy workflows. You don't even need any kind of coding knowledge or skills. All you need is clear communication, a little curiosity because you're going to learn as you go as it develops and the willingness to test and refine and repeat when things are not exactly what you want. You're going to learn by doing and don't aim to be perfect when it comes to aim to be consistent and to just have progress, get better. And when you hit a wall, just ask AI to help you get better at prompting. Seriously, you could say to ChatGPT, for example, how can I make this prompt that I just wrote you to get me better results?

7:45How can I rewrite the prompt to get better results? I'm telling you, it's great. it's incredible. Step five, the real magic. Okay. It's not just productivity. It's possibility. AI doesn't just save you time. It opens up new lanes in your business. You can use it to brainstorm your next digital product. You could generate new course ideas based on Airbnb host pain points that they express to you in your community. You can have it simulate as a customer and ask it what objections they'd have to an offer, right? Pretty cool. You can ask it to act like a launch strategist and build you a seven-day promo plan.

8:26The ideas that you'll start to generate for prompts for AI will start to get better and better the more you use it. You're going to start saying, well, can I do this? Can I do that? Can I ask it to do something new that I don't normally do? And you'll find new ideas pop up just by using it, Not because AI is magic, but because you're thinking bigger when you're not buried with busy work, right? So Jackie and everybody who's listening, you're already ahead of most people by just asking how I start. How should I start with AI? Well, you're already starting by asking. Now it's time to play. Now it's time to use it.

9:03So to recap real quick, pick one AI tool. You can use ChatGPT or Claude is what I recommend. Either one. Use the Coast Prompt Framework for better output, C-O-A-S-T. Number three, build a list of 10 tasks you want AI to start doing instead of you doing it. Number four, let go of perfection. Learn by doing. Number five, use it not just to save time, but to spark ideas and explore endless possibilities. For now, AI is not replacing you, okay? But someone using AI will, okay? The good news is that that can be you. You're still early. You still have time. But don't wait to learn AI like you're going to learn something in a course.

9:45Start using it and you'll learn as you go. Thanks for the question, Jackie. And thanks for everybody who's listening who are trying to get smarter, have more fun with their business. I love it. If you have a question you want to ask, go ahead and ask it on Q &A Wednesday. All you got to do is go to 100mba.net slash Q and submit your question there. And I'll make sure to answer it right here on the show. And hey, if you're listening and you've been ignoring AI because it felt too big or too nerdy or too late, today's the perfect day to change that. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast.

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