Custom GPTs vs ChatGPT: How I Save Hours Every Week Writing Proposals and Content
It’s not something everyone admits out loud, but so many of us are a little AIā€‘curious. We’ve been tinkering with ChatGPT and other AI tools to make life easier, to spark ideas, free up time, plan projects, write content and emails.
Then in the grown-up world, there are people doing extraordinary things with AI in areas like healthcare, education and the environment that are genuinely making a positive difference for all of us.
For everyday business tasks, though, many people are still figuring out how to use AI in a way that actually saves time and feels like them. That’s where the difference between ChatGPT and a Custom GPT becomes important.
When you open up a free ChatGPT chat, it’s great for oneā€‘off tasks. Type in a question and it will help you. If you keep going in the same thread or chat it can even feel like it knows you.
But as soon as you close that chat and start a new one, you’re starting from scratch. You need to explain your tone of voice, the structure you like, and what you do or don’t want every single time.
A lot of people say to me, “Yes, but my free ChatGPT does all that too.” I understand why it feels that way. If you keep typing in the same chat, ChatGPT holds the context you’ve built up in that thread.
The key difference is that this memory doesn't carry over into a new conversation. As soon as you start a fresh chat, all of those preferences, examples and instructions are gone.
You’re back to square one.
A Custom GPT is different.
It isn’t relying on one conversation history. It’s been set up with your tone, your style and your rules permanently. Every time you open it, whether it’s today or months from now, it already knows how you like to work.
I’ve built several Custom GPTs for my own work. One of my favourite ones that genuinely save me SO much time and makes the boring "admin" of writing a proposal easy is my Proposal GPT.
Writing proposals used to take me ages and I seriously found it a bit excruciating to do. I’d either start from scratch each time, trying to remember exactly how I worded things before or find an old proposal and copy that and change it up.
Now, I open my Proposal GPT, and it walks me through exactly what it needs. It asks me what service the client wants, my hourly rate, which package I’m recommending, it asks if I want to give them 2 or 3 different options to choose from with pricing tiers that reflect.
I’ve even trained it to ask me things like, “Is this the type of client you will enjoy working with?” and “Does this project feel like a good fit?” When I answer those questions, it pulls everything together into a draft proposal that already sounds like me. I tweak it and send it off.
One of my clients, Christine* (name changed to protect the innocent), runs a small marketing agency. She was spending hours every week writing proposals, often late at night after a long day with her clients. We worked together to build a proposal GPT that reflected her services, pricing and tone of voice.
Now she answers a few prompts and within minutes she has a strong first draft ready to refine. She told me she now feels more professional, more consistent and has saved hours every single week.
And proposals are only part of it. I’ve also created Custom GPTs to help me plan social media posts, draft email newsletters and map out content ideas. Instead of staring at a blank page, I can create weeks of content in a fraction of the time, and it stays true to my own voice and style.
If you’re creating content, writing LinkedIn posts, preparing client proposals, sending regular emails or planning marketing campaigns, a Custom GPT can take away so much of the repetition. It’s especially valuable if you want everyone in your team to write in the same tone and style.
You have two options. I can train you or someone in your team to create your own Custom GPTs, or I can build them for you. I’ll work with you to capture your tone, your services and your way of communicating so the GPT feels like an extension of you.
If you’d like to see one in action to test for yourself (a freebie), send me a message or email me at [email protected] and I’ll share my “Ideal Client Compass” GPT. It will help you get a clear picture of your ideal clients and the kind of content they’re most interested in reading.
Then you can daydream about how having a team of these for your business could really save you time, make the boring admin tasks simple and allow you to use your many talents in other areas.
