Most trades owners who’ve tried ChatGPT used it to write a Facebook post. It spat out something with three emojis and the word “elevate,” they cringed, and they closed the tab. Verdict: not for me.
Fair. That is a bad use of it.
Writing posts is the least valuable thing this tool does for a business like yours. It’s like buying a truck and only ever using it to charge your phone.
What it’s actually good at
AI (software that can read, write, and summarize the way a sharp assistant would) is at its best on the boring admin that eats your evenings. Not the creative stuff. The repetitive stuff.
It earns its keep for a trades business by:
- Turning a voice memo into a quote. Talk through the job on the drive home. Paste the transcript in, ask for a clean estimate with line items. You edit instead of write from scratch.
- Answering the same five questions. Draft the replies to “do you service my area,” “what’s your rough pricing,” “how soon can you come out” once, and reuse them. First contact stops living on your thumbs.
- Following up without staring at a blank screen. “Write a short, friendly follow-up to a customer I quoted last week who went quiet.” Ten seconds. Sounds like you if you tell it how you talk.
- Writing down what’s in your head. “Here’s how I do a first-visit walkthrough, clean it into a simple checklist a new hire could follow.” Now the process isn’t trapped in your memory.
- Making sense of a pile of notes. Drop in a messy list of the week’s jobs and ask what needs follow-up. It sorts. You act.
The one rule that keeps it useful
Give it your specifics. Vague in, vague out.
“Write a follow-up email” gets you the emoji soup. “Write a four-sentence follow-up to Dave, who I quoted $3,200 for a bathroom remodel eight days ago, casual, no pressure, remind him the quote holds for 30 days” gets you something you can send after a two-word edit.
The tool doesn’t know your business. You do. It’s fast; you’re the expertise. That’s the split that makes it worth your time.
Use it for the admin that’s been stealing your nights, not for a post you’ll cringe at. That’s the difference between a gimmick and an assistant.