Use ChatGPT to Build a Hyper-Efficient Health Coaching Business (Without Sounding Like a Robot)

Michelle Leotta:
Welcome to the Health Coach Power Community Podcast. I'm Michelle Leotta, ex-corporate girl turned certified health coach with over 15 years of experience growing a successful online practice. I started out with no idea what I was getting into and learned a lot of lessons along the way that have given me the freedom to do the work I love and raised two boys as a single mom. I created a health coach power community over a decade ago to make it easier for health coaches to build a career they love and make the world a better place.

I cut about $5,000 a month in business expenses recently, and I've talked a lot about this, how I've gotten rid of about half the tech tools that I've been using, plus several contractors that I've been paying. One thing that I've leaned into is learning how to use ChatGPT the right way. And today I want to introduce you to Sarah Cook, who seriously helped make that happen.

Let me tell you about her. Sarah Cook is a former naturopathic doctor, turned copywriter with over 20 years of experience in the wellness space, and these days she's helping practitioners like you and I use ChatGPT more effectively. It has worked for me, so I needed to bring Sarah to the show.

I have her BrandVibe, AI training to thank for all of this. And guess what? She's running it again this Spring Live, so I can't recommend it enough. I want you to go check it out at HealthCoachPower.com/AI. Sarah, I just absolutely had to bring you on the show to talk about this tool, this one tool that's made the biggest difference in my business while allowing me to step away from so many others. So thank you so much for being here.

Sarah Cook:
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Michelle. I love that story, and what a difference it has made for you.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah, I mean, as I mentioned, I have been actively going into all my subscriptions, canceling them, getting rid of this software, that software, just moving away from technology very purposefully, any of the automated things in my practice.

And I think from what I hear from health coaches, like a lot of my listeners are feeling kind of. Fed up with technology. So I mean, obviously, it can be convenient and obviously that there are benefits, but sometimes it just starts feeling like all we do is mess with tech all day. So I just wanted to start there.

Since you're in this world of dealing with ChatGPT, when do you think we should lean into this stuff, and when do you think maybe we can lean or we should lean away from it?

Sarah Cook:
Oh, it's such a great question and something to think about because ultimately my end goal is not specifically to help health coaches and practitioners use ChatGPT.

Like, my end goal is to help make their content creation easier and make their copywriting work better so that their content actually brings in the types of clients they wanna attract and actually helps to grow their practice. And like, that's what I've been doing for the last 10 years, is helping them with their messaging, their copywriting, their content creation.

And AI is just a tool that actually is an incredible opportunity to make all of this so much easier. So much more fun. So much more time efficient. And financially efficient, like you were saying. I mean, I think it used to be the options were I need to pay somebody to be your social media manager, to write your new website, you had to kind of outsource these things, or you had to put in so much time yourself that you know, burn out.

And so it's such an amazing opportunity as a tool to where, especially health coaches or practitioners who are wanting to kind of really be that voice of leadership in their content, they don't wanna outsource it necessarily. It helps make that possible in a way that was never possible before. And so, yeah, you're asking, well, when should we lean in?

When should we lean out? It's absolutely a balance of using the tool for parts of our process, but always leading from. Who we are, what our ideas really are, what we want our messaging to be, and always coming from this space of like, I am the leader of my content. I'm the voice behind my content, and really, actually using the tool to help amplify that and make that easier to bring to the people, like to the public, I guess, is what I'm looking to say. Easier to bring that out. So yeah, absolutely a balance, but always starting from the human side.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. I mean, ultimately, I had to ask myself with my various, you know, tools and tech, like, is this helping me connect with real people who need my help, or is this creating like barriers? Am I spending all day fussing with the backend of some tool and not even able to answer a simple email from a client, or from, you know, like my road was getting clogged with all this traffic of tech, or is the tool helping clear stuff from my plate?

And that's what I found with ChatGPT, is that it has opened up time, it has opened up financial resources so that I can actually spend more time connecting human to human with my audience. So, uh, I do think this is a tool like worth doubling down on. It has been fantastic for me.

Again, thank you for that 'cause you really opened my eyes to how to use it better. I had to ask. My health coach community, like who's using ChatGPT here turns out most are already using it in one way, shape, or form. Many have a pet name or a nickname for their ChatGPT. I've heard Chad, GPT, for example, but there are some frustrations that keep coming up.

And I wanted to talk about those with you because we might, you know, we have a lot of coaches who are like, I'm using it, but I'm using it and I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. So I have three big ones that I wanna talk about today. The first one, the biggest one is the, it doesn't sound like me. It feels generic, or it makes me sound like every other coach, 'cause you know, every coach out there is using it too. I just keep getting like the same recycled stuff. So, like at its heart, is that a prompting issue, or are we just like expecting too much?

Sarah Cook:
So I think that it's easy to, to you ask, is that a prompting issue, right? So when you're getting this, oh, ChatGPT sounds generic, it's using all the same kind of phrasings, it's always using the em dash.

It's like it's easy to start asking, like, oh, do I just need a better prompt or Yeah. How do I make it stop using the em dash? How do I make it stop, you know, using a certain phrase of like, you're not broken or whatever. And, but here's the thing. I really wanna zoom out for a second because. That line of thought, it's almost looking for a quick fix to how can we make ChatGPT, stop being so generic, when really we don't need a quick fix for this.

We need to look at it more systemically, more from the root cause. I think that this is. It's probably an analogy I'm sure your listeners can appreciate, right? It's really similar to someone saying, I get bloated after every meal. Can you give me a supplement when you know? Yes, they'll feel better when they take the enzymes, but anytime you take the enzymes away, they're back to square one.

Right? Same with like, oh, let's try a better prompt or some sort of like quick hack with getting ChatGPT to do a better job. It is a band-aid approach. Um, and one thing that I'm seeing really that's being pushed, sold by. Other marketers or coaches teaching AI. There's really two bandaid approaches I would say, that are being promoted right now.

One is prompts. It's like mega prompts or the perfect prompt type of thing, which. I'm happy to talk about this more because I'm not against better prompts, but well, for example, I'll give you an example of that. But the second band-aid approach that I don't wanna forget to mention essentially is custom GPTs.

And so both of these, they have a place; they can be very helpful for certain. Situations and tasks. But here, here's the problem, like ultimately, I don't want something that's going to help me once and done. I want something that is going to be, especially when I'm getting practitioners to use AI as a tool for their content creation.

I want it to be something so that anytime that they need to write a weekly email, write a social post, write a landing page for their upcoming masterclass. The slides for their upcoming masterclass. Anything that comes up, I want that system to be in place for them in a way that really grows with them over time, continues to help them better over time versus kind of a one-time fix.

And so just for example, like the prompts. I'm not against a good prompt, like I said, right? So, for example, one way that I used this recently in my community was I hosted a 2026 content planning workshop, and I wrote up a big prompt to start the process, and that essentially was telling ChatGPT, Hey, here's what we're gonna be doing today.

Here are the goals, here is the process. This is how I want you to bond. And so there was all of this detailed input, right? That was very helpful for that very specific task we wanted to accomplish that day. And so in that regard, having a really great prompt can help you in a certain situation. But outside of that one time, that's not gonna be a reusable rinse and repeat process.

That practitioner, like I said, when they need to go, now they need to go write a sales page. Now they need to go update their bio. All of these different things you need to create content for. You need to have a system that essentially grows with you and gets to know you over time, and all these things.

Briefly, just on the custom GPT is, I think the other bandaid approach that I see is purchase my AI tool, and essentially with a custom GPT. The biggest problem with that is that it does not learn you over time. It does not remember you over time, so you can be using somebody else's tool. Yes, it remembers you in one conversation thread, but you can't stay in one conversation thread forever.

Eventually, it glitches out, or you have to update the model, and you start again, and now you're re-explaining your business. You're re-explaining your messaging. You're starting from scratch with every new conversation inside of a custom GPT. So that is why those two kind of approaches to, oh, how do we get better?

Not generic outputs, really, to me, are a bandaid, and so the way that I really go about this is essentially training health coaches and practitioners to set up and then utilize over time AI as a tool that essentially they own what they're doing in there. It's not somebody else's custom GPT with hidden instructions.

It gets to know them more and more over time. So, actually they do not need to keep re-explaining every time they open a new conversation. Oh yeah. I actually have a hormone health program, and it's for women over 40, and it works like this. They don't need to. Explain that because their tool knows it, it gets to know them over time and really changes and actually evolves with them over time.

So I think so much of our businesses and practices are, are always evolving and changing and doing the next thing. And if you have your AI tool set up. It can actually grow and evolve with you and continues to support you as kind of your content assistant.

Michelle Leotta:
Well, lemme just ask a clarifying question in there because, um, you, you mentioned custom GPTs.

I think what you're referring to is like, maybe someone out there is selling access to a custom GPT that will help you write a sales page, for example. And so using their custom GPT that is set up with certain prompts, it's gonna guide you through this one project. While helpful, it doesn't know anything about you.

So the difference is that you can have your own custom GPT that you actually own and belongs to you. Is that right?

Sarah Cook:
Exactly. Thank you. Yes. I know I jump into talking about custom GPTs as if everybody knows what that is, but you're right. You'll see, yes, people selling their AI tools. So I had an A marketing email sent to me just this past weekend, and it was purchase my AI tool, my custom GPT.

It will help you write better sales copy. She was charging $3,500, and that was until midnight because her regular price is $6,000. So I have a lot of thoughts about this. Number one, I can see this is a person who owns the value of her work, which is something, of course I can get behind, and I can be happy about that, but at the same time, this is her custom GPT. It means that she has these instructions on the backend that are hidden from me and completely outside of my control, which means anytime she can decide to change them, I might be using that tool, and I think I love it now. She changes the instructions, and it's working differently, or she decides just that's not her thing anymore, and she shuts it down. I don't have access anymore. Or like I said before, maybe I'm loving it in one conversation, but I've been using it for a month, and now ChatGPT is like telling me you need to go to a new conversation because this model is no longer supported anymore.

Now I go to a new conversation, and I realized, wait, it doesn't know me anymore. I am starting from scratch. So the whole idea of actually creating something sustainable to support you over time. It just is not supported by using, it's like borrowing somebody else's tool is not the solution.

Michelle Leotta:
Got it. Oh wow. I have not seen anything priced quite like that, but it makes a lot of sense 'cause coaches and practitioners are out there going, I need help writing my emails. I need help. You know, whatever. Boom, there's a tool I can use. Amazing.
But you're right. It doesn't fix that issue about the tool or the AI knowing like you, your business. Your tone, your offers, your voice. And that was actually the second thing that came up the most, you know, when I was talking to my audience, is that it doesn't always remember me, or it might remember me for a little while, and then I gotta start over and explain who the heck I am again.

And that's obviously time-consuming. It's a little bit annoying to have to, oh, this is my niche, or this is what the offer is. Or, I like my voice to be more like this, or I like to take this kind of tone, so I know you're gonna go into this in your training. But could you just top-level like two or three ways that we can actually train our own custom GPT to understand us and work like a real assistant?

Because you guys, that's what I've been doing, and I feel like I have like an entry-level assistant that works for me. I don't expect it to do everything. It's not gonna come up with the final finished product. That's always gonna be like my genius that has to come into it, but it is gonna get me like halfway there.

And with the right instructions. It really can be a beautiful thing because it understands my business, and I don't even remember, 'cause I went through this process a while ago. So what are like two or three ways that we train it?

Sarah Cook: Absolutely. Yes. And I will just reiterate how you are saying, oh, I feel like I have this tool that's there to support me all the time.

Is one of the naturopath doctors, she is in my program. The way she worded this, she was just like, I don't know what I did without my chatty GPT, but she said that whenever she's questioning. How she's gonna word something. She says that she just feels like she trusts it to kind of lead her in the right way because it really does.

It's like when it feels like it knows you, um, it's such a completely different experience of the output.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. Like I can say, Hey, remember when we were talking about that idea I had about X, Y, Z? And I'll say, oh yeah, I remember Michelle. And I'll say, remind me what we said, 'cause my brain maybe totally forgot and it recaps it for me.
It is like a lifesaver. Even just chatting with it while I am driving or taking a shower, I can maybe write something, but also just brainstorm like a business idea or what's another angle to talk about this.

Sarah Cook:
Well, yeah, and I will get to like really there, it's really just kind of three things to know to help it actually to get to know you better over time, but once it does get to know you better over time.

One of the most amazing benefits I never thought of before, but I have been experiencing, is that it can help you stay on point in your messaging in a way you never were before. I think a lot of times we, in the past, I would even create a nice messaging document for myself, and then it's just like stored on the Google Drive and then I'm just writing my content kind of separate from that, not really thinking about what was on my messaging document before.

Wow. Now we can have our lovely messaging documents inside of our AI tools so that our AI tool can always keep us on point. So for example, I could even, I will write a blog article. I'll load it in there, and I'll say, Hey, can you tell me where can I add a point or two into this article to reinforce one of my messaging pillars?

And it knows. And it can tell me. And so it's one of these things where I think if we have any sense of like, oh, I feel like my message is all over the place, or I'm just not consistent in what I'm saying, having an AI tool that is trained in your message and knows you better and better over time can absolutely keep you on point, essentially.

So truly, it's truly incredible when you have this. So there's really kind of three things to keep in mind. So what happens? And here's the thing, I teach to chat GPT, but as I understand it, really this is a methodology that doesn't have to be stuck to a search in software. I've had people in my workshops who tell me it's exactly transferable over to Claude conceptually once you get it anyway.

But because I do teach ChatGPT, that how I'm wording everything, but conceptually it's the same thing, no matter your tool. And so the first thing is giving your tool, the basic foundation of who you are and what you're using it for. We do this in ChatGPT. We do this in the basic settings. There's actually three boxes for custom instructions.

You have 1500 characters, and you're essentially just telling it, I'm a health coach, I need you to help me create my marketing content. Because here's the thing, people are using ChatGPT to write code, to do their physics homework, to plan their vacations as their emotional, uh, coach. Right? Like, how does it know what you want it to help you with unless you tell it?

And so you do that at the account level. In these basic custom instruction boxes, just as the very, very baseline, so that anything you do in your account now it knows, oh, I'm helping write marketing content for a health coach. Great. Okay. So it always knows that if it lives in your custom instructions, that's kind of layer number one.

But it's also very basic because it's only 1500 characters. You can't put a whole lot in there. So layer two is in chat pt. We use projects. There is the equivalent over in Claude, and I forgot what it's called, but in a project. You might think of a project, Oh, as just like a folder, and I get to organize things.

Yes. But it's so much more than that because actually, in a project you have much more capacity to give background information about yourself. So, whereas custom instructions, you're just got a short paragraph. When you create a project, you're able to, number one, provide another box of instructions, but number two, you're able to upload documents, and that's where it gets really magical because these used to be called project files, now they're called source files.

By the time anybody listens to this, who knows what they'll be calling them? But you're able to add files to an overall project, and that means that anytime you work inside that project, however many different conversations you wanna have going in there, your AI tool always has access to whatever files are in that project.

So what do we put in the files? Our brand messaging document and voice. So this is really, really is where things completely change because if we create a really thorough document that has all of our main brand messaging points, our voice, our tone, who our ideal clients are, what our signature phrases are, what our offerings are, right?

Kind of like our offer structure. This is a document that is. I think of it as a living, breathing document 'cause you can always be adjusting it, adding to, or changing it. I call it your brand vibe kit. You have this document. It's essentially what the AI tool needs in order to serve as your brand copywriter.

Michelle Leotta:
So it's sort of like buying all of the ingredients that you need so that you can cook the recipe, like you have to feed it, you have to give it certain, um, materials or things so that it can spit out the right results for you within that project, I think. You know, the, it does change, like you said, over time the tool changes, but back when I did it, I uploaded, um, transcripts from my podcast so that it would understand how I actually speak.

And is that what you're talking about? And in addition to like a messaging document, which you help everyone create, by the way, is part of your training. So if you guys are like, I don't have a messaging document, Sarah, I dunno what you're talking about, don't worry, she's just gonna help you through that, but right like uploading like samples of actually how you speak, how you write.

Sarah Cook:
Yes, exactly. So there's kind of any number of additional documents you could certainly add as a reference into projects. Yes. Transcripts. So things are great if you have, if you really like your website. Homepage about page. That's helpful, 'cause it's an example of how you do your messaging, right? The most essential is, is a brand messaging document you learned how to do as you went through the brand vibe, AI training, and the thing is, yeah, that's another place that we can all get stuck is like what goes in my messaging document, right?

And that's what I guide through in the BrandVibe AI training. We actually, we create that document, and the thing is, it's so much more fun to create your messaging document when you have AI to help you through it as well. It's nice to balance because, historically, I've always taught messaging and copywriting, but it also just used to feel a lot heavier and harder, and now it's like we can take.

These principles that we know of, like, well, how do we actually need to think about our ideal client problems or pain points? How do we actually think about their desires? We can take, kind of like what we already know to be true about what works in messaging, and then we bring that in with AI to help us reflect back to us, give us ideas, and pulling together a messaging document just becomes a lot easier and becomes a lot more fun than just having to do it on your own kind of journaling by yourself kind of thing. That's what we do in BrandVibe AI.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah, super useful exercise. All like things you kind of know in your head somewhere, but you, you end up, you know, answering very distinct questions.

It organizes it for you. And finally, you have that document. And I would, I was always to put something like that together when I was hiring a copywriter in the past, which by the way, costs way more money than any of this. But now you just do it once. It's in there. And like you said, it does learn over time.

So as my business has changed and my voice has changed, it remembers, which is so fabulous. Now, Sarah, you mentioned the projects already. That might be the answer to this question as well. Just tell me if it is, but one of the struggles or challenges that a lot of my coaches were talking about is that they tend to get lost or disorganized when they're using ChatGPT, like.

They start going down rabbit holes, and now they're scrolling forever. Trying to find that one paragraph that they wrote a week ago, and it's like, where is it? So, is there a better way to structure how we use the tool so it supports our thinking?

Sarah Cook:
Oh, okay. Such a great question. Uh, one thing that absolutely can happen is ChatGPT will always try to prompt you with the next thing. It wants to help you do so. So you'll notice that maybe you just have asked it to help you write an email and you'll, it will give you the email draft, and then it will say, would you like me to turn this into a video script to record a reel? Like, no.

I get caught up in that sometimes, and if you follow its continual line of questioning, you can get completely derailed from your initial. Plan. Right. So, pretty much for the most part, I don't even read whatever the final sentence it says. I don't even read it anymore because I know it's gonna take me down some tangent, and I have a plan myself for like, no, I wanted to write the email and get my weekly email.

Period. Right. And so I think the biggest thing here is just coming into it with the mindset of you're in charge, you're the leader of this. Like I said at the beginning, like you're the voice behind your content. You're the leader behind your content. And AI is a tool and is an assistant, and we need to always be thinking of it that way.

Um, a couple of just particular kinds of things that. I always teach to do as well is bringing to the AI tool. Copywriting frameworks and copywriting templates can be huge because instead of just letting AI decide, just saying to it, if you just say, write a sales page, it is not gonna go well. It is going to write something very short.

It's going to write something very generic versus we know we have. Structured sales page psychology follows certain frameworks. We know that works. And if you can come with a template that you know works, and then you lead the show, right? You lead ChatGPT as, Hey, right now we're working on the headline, and here's how I want the headline structured.

And here are some formulas when you're leading with that now. You're not getting derailed, you're not going down rabbit holes because you are coming with this structure. So I think there's a few elements to it. I mean, we've kind of touched on those three really main elements of how I teach using AI is like you have to bring your humanness, like your creativity and your ideas, and just your brain dump of what I'm thinking I wanna share today.

You wanna bring it things like copywriting, templates that you know work, and you wanna have the setup on the backend so that it is supporting you over time and not just being all over the place or forgetting about you. So it's kind of these three things altogether. Ultimately, bring together a system where now kind of like where you were saying, now you're actually able to create your content and not have to pay five thousand dollars for someone else to do it and all these things.

Michelle Leotta:
Amazing. Yes. And everyone, please remember, you are the CEO of your business. And if you had an assistant who, every time you asked to do something, they were like, would you also like me to turn that into an email? Would you also like me to make that into a video?

Would you also like me to, you'd be like, stop. Stop. I will tell you when I need something. Right? So it's the same thing. You are directing it. It is not directing you and I think that is at the heart of making sure that we're not turning into robots. We're not being led by the technology, but instead we are the humans.

Like you said, using the tool, not the other way around. It's not telling us what comes next. We. Tell it. So just put on that CEO hat before you do anything with ChatGPT.

Sarah Cook:
You really think of it like back in the day I had a client who's a functional medicine practitioner and he was having me write his blogs and his socials and his emails, everything, but he was a busy, like busy with patients all day and he would just get ideas and he would just voice memo me and it would be completely random, but it would be deep like it would be, oh, I've just seen a couple of women and they have depression and I'm thinking it connects to iron. But they've had all their labs.

Oh, I have to look at the ferritin. It's because their ferritin is low, and we have to look at labs differently in functional medicine. And I wanted, I want a blog post about how iron relates to depression.

And it's kind of like all over the place, right? It's like a brain dump of randomness, but it's like these clinical pearls. And I would take that, and then yes, I would turn it into the content, and I actually like recommend that is how you think about using AI is that you bring it your clinical pearls, your random ideas, how you're thinking things connect because you've lived this experience and you have this knowledge that nobody else can just Google up.

You bring that to AI as if you're bringing it to your wonderful, smart copywriter who you like to send voice memos to. This comes back to your question of being human, like that's how it you get human output from the AI is if you give it enough of that human goodness juiciness to work with from the start. Like we have to start with that sort of thing.

Michelle Leotta:
Oh, that is such a good point. I love a good brain dump. I love talking to ChatGPT, because when I type, sometimes I am feeling like I have to format it or write proper sentences, but when I'm just talking to it, it's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just here's what I'm thinking.

Here's this thought that occurred to me. Here's this problem I'm having, and then it kind of brings it all together into this nice little package. I'm like, oh yeah. Yes, that's exactly it. That's what I'm trying to say.

Sarah Cook:
Yes. And that 100% works once you have your system set up correctly.

Michelle Leotta:
Absolutely. Good, good, good. So tell us more about Brand Vibe AI.

Sarah Cook:
Yes, so I have previously taught this as a mini course. I've had more than four 50 practitioners go through it. And I'm bringing it live because I've just really seen that because I also have a bigger copywriting program with coaching and things, and I see that the people in there is like, oh, when they have the coaching through this process, it's even more powerful.

It's even easier for them. And so I'm bringing BrandVibe AI live, and so what we're gonna do is it's April 6th through 10th, and I'll be guiding you through creating what I call your brand Vibe kit. This is essentially what AI needs in order to know you, your message, and your voice. I have a very specific process of helping you to create that.

That makes it very easy, very fast, and it doesn't feel hard at all, I promise. Even if you're like, I don't even know who my ideal client is or my niche is, it's okay. We're gonna be able to create this brand vibe kit for you. And then the other thing we do during that week is. Literally the tech setup of how to get that set up in your ChatGPT account with your project, so that by the end of the week, you 100% have your very own AI copywriter that you have control over that grows and evolves with you over time, that you can use for anything and every piece of content in your business.

Um, and so it's just such a powerful tool. And so that week we'll have the training, and we'll have some. Q and as we'll have a pop-up community open for questions throughout the week. So there'll be all kinds of support and feedback as well.

Michelle Leotta:
Hey, that's awesome. And I, I forget when I initially did this with you. Let's say it was a year ago, that means I've saved what, like $60,000, so it's this. This one brand vibe kit that you're gonna make you guys, it's worth at least $60,000. That's what I have to say about it. If this conversation made you realize that you've been underusing ChatGPT, or not using it effectively, go sign up for this.

It's gonna be so worth your time. It's HealthCoachPower.com/AI. Sarah, thank you so much for being here and sharing your brilliance with us.

Sarah Cook:
Thank you so much, Michelle. Lovely as always. Appreciate it.

Michelle Leotta:
Thank you so much for listening to the Health Coach Power Community podcast. Please take a moment, leave a written review on Apple Podcasts. It helps us reach more coaches and allows me to bring you this free content every week to join us live. Ask your questions and have a direct line to me. Join our free Facebook group at HealthCoachPowerCommunity.com.