More than a Few Words

23/11/2025

Do you ever lose track of your tasks? Helene Gidley has a genius solution: keep them visible! She suggests using sticky notes or a task board to organize your day, so you’re always reminded of what’s next.

22/11/2025

Custom GPTs: Great Idea, Messy Middle, Clear Fix
I sat down with Len Ward to talk about Custom GPT's. Here's a taste of what we talked about

What a Custom GPT Really Is

Think of it as a focused version of ChatGPT trained on one topic or project. You give it your business context, processes, locations, services, and sales flow. Then you task it like a virtual teammate, whether that is marketing strategy, PR support, or client onboarding.

Why Agencies Should Care

You can build GPTs for onboarding, intake, and industry research so the fundamentals happen the same way every time. That frees your team to do the creative, strategic work clients actually pay you for.

Guardrails You Must Set

AI will make mistakes. Your job is to verify. Keep personally identifiable or financial data out of training files, or remove names and add codes. In the settings, turn off training on your data so your proprietary workflows do not feed the broader model.

Keep Your Voice, Not a Mash-up

If the model drifts from your tone, retrain it. Load recent articles, provide style notes, then ask the GPT to produce a list of prompts you can use to keep output on target. Revisit this often.

Where Marketing Is Heading

Search is shifting from find me links to solve my problem. There is no single playbook for showing up in AI answers. Strong brands with rich, useful content are winning. Build a deep library, structure it clearly, and let your site’s chatbot and analytics tell you what questions to answer next. If your website cannot help as quickly as ChatGPT, visitors will bounce.

22/11/2025

I sat down with Cara Chatellier, the founder and creative director of Bubbly Creative, to talk about something that hits home for every small business owner,

21/11/2025

When you were a kid and told your mom “but everyone else is doing it,” did she ever ask if you’d jump off a roof just because your friends did? That little life lesson holds up pretty well in business too.

In this episode, Jennifer Denney and I tackled a big question: Can I copy my competitors? Sure, you could—but that’s basically leaping off the marketing roof with everyone else and hoping you land in the same spot. Not exactly a winning strategy.

Key Takeaways:

Study your competitors—don’t clone them. Understanding what others do helps you find your own lane, not follow theirs.

Define your “why.” “Great service” and “free estimates” aren’t differentiators. They’re table stakes. Find what really makes you different.

Know your true competitors. The HVAC company selling to builders isn’t competing with the one doing home repairs. Same industry, totally different game.

Let data guide you. Use ChatGPT to identify competitors, analyze your messaging, and build a matrix of what sets you apart.

Show, don’t tell. Create a “Why Choose Us” page that highlights your difference in a way your customers actually care about.

You can follow the crowd, or you can build your own ladder and climb higher. Just remember—jumping off the roof never ends well.

21/11/2025

Stop putting all your energy into chasing your next customer, and invest time in keeping current customers engaged.

Nick Cavarra suggests that it is time to stop putting all your energy into chasing your next customer, and invest time in keeping current customers engaged.

18/11/2025

Loved hanging with Roy Coughlan, talking about my podcast journey

Lorraine Ball is an Entrepreneur. Author. Professional speaker. Host of More than a Few Words. She spent decades in the trenches—building businesses, surviving boar…

18/11/2025

Use this example to build a year-at-a-glance tool which lets you identify themes and brainstorm ideas on how those themes can be incorporated into blog posts, graphics video and email newsletters

https://morethanafewwords.com/content-calendar-offer/

17/11/2025

What is in your marketing closet? is it time to clean it out and focus on what is really working for you?

16/11/2025

How do women view your company

Are you selling to women? They represent a significant part of our global economy, but many companies aren't any good at it.

15/11/2025

Getting started with custom Chat GPTs.

From my conversation with Len Ward
Actionable Takeaways

Define one use case per GPT - Write a short charter: goal, users, data sources, and what a good output looks like.

Load the right context - Add services, locations, offers, FAQs, process docs, and sample deliverables. Keep sensitive data out.

Lock privacy settings - In settings, disable training on your data. Create a redacted template for any documents you must upload.

Create a prompt toolkit - Ask the GPT to generate ten prompts you will use repeatedly. Save them in a shared doc and refine weekly.

Build a voice file - Provide three to five recent articles, a tone guide, and do-not-use words. Retrain monthly to prevent drift.

Turn questions into content - Pull queries from your chatbot, support inbox, and sales calls. Publish concise answers on your site and repurpose into short videos and posts.

Organize a content vault - Store every article, case study, and clip in a labeled Drive or Dropbox folder so future GPTs can reference a complete library.

Measure the human handoff - Set a rule for review. For example, AI drafts, human edits, AI proofreads, human approves. Track time saved and quality.

Custom GPTs are not here to replace your team. They are here to make your best people faster and your processes cleaner. Start small, set guardrails, and keep shipping content that truly answers the questions your audience is asking. That is how you turn an experiment into an edge.

15/11/2025

Your goal is to build relationships one email at a time.

14/11/2025

Chasing Shiny Things vs. Smart Marketing Moves

Everywhere you look, there’s a new marketing trend promising to “change everything.” New tools, new tactics, new rabbit holes to fall into. It’s enough to make even the most disciplined marketer feel a little like a five-year-old in a toy store—ooh, shiny!

Jennifer Denney and I sat down to talk about trends. We both confessed we love playing with new ideas. But there’s a fine line between staying curious and getting distracted. The trick is knowing when a trend deserves your attention—and when it’s just noise.

Key Takeaways:

Ask the tough questions first. How does this fit with what you’re already doing? What will you have to give up to make room for it?

Start with your audience, not your peers. If your customers don’t care about the trend, you probably shouldn’t either.

Look for patterns, not hype. History repeats itself in marketing. Trends with staying power usually echo something that’s worked before.

Check your capacity. Can you really execute it well with the tools, time, and team you have? If not, it might cost more than it’s worth.

Content endures. Platforms, algorithms, and fads change—but solid, valuable content never goes out of style.

Trends will come and go. The smart marketer knows when to hop on—and when to wave as the bandwagon rolls by.