Use ChatGPT Like a CFO and a CMO

There’s been a lot of talk in our industry about ChatGPT. When it first launched late last year, I saw the writing on the wall (or, err… on my screen) immediately. Many did not. Submitted articles rejected, threads on Facebook about how “scary”, or how wrong it is. It makes mistakes. It’s going to be used for evil. All the same new versions of every argument and concern ever raised over every disruption in technology since we went from green leger paper to computers for accounting. 

At Pace University, I remember taking “EDP Auditing” classes. Electronic Data Processing. And now here we are today and you would never imagine someone not having their accounting records on a computer. In fact, you would likely mock someone for even suggesting using paper, and you would be certain they must be joking.

“Oh but this is different,” one colleague said to me. 

It isn’t different. 

It’s newer and perhaps scarier in some ways. 

But like every tool ever made, there will be people who use it for good, and people who use it for evil. And then there will be people who use it to combat the people who use it for evil.

Bottom line, if there is money to be made, someone somewhere will use it for that. This is the one constant we can absolutely count on in our society. 

Almost everything I’ve seen on ChatGPT has been about using it to write correspondence. Emails to clients or prospects to save time. Especially where you might need an objective source to write something of a sensitive nature and you need to take the emotion out of it to keep it professional.

These are great use cases, but they are only scratching the surface. 

There is so much more we can and should be doing with ChatGPT.

Use ChatGPT like a CFO

The first thing you might want to do is quite literally prompt ChatGPT with something like the following:

“You are the CFO of my company. 

What kinds of things should I ask for your help with?”

This is the response I got:

As a CFO, my primary responsibility is managing the financial health of the company. You can ask for my help with the following:

1. Financial Planning: I can assist you in developing and executing financial plans that align with the company's goals and objectives.
2. Budgeting: I can help you create and monitor the company's budget, ensuring that spending aligns with revenue and that the company remains financially stable.
3. Financial Analysis: I can provide insights into the financial performance of the company, identify areas of improvement, and recommend strategies to enhance profitability.
4. Capital Management: I can help you manage the company's capital structure, including debt and equity financing, to ensure that the company has the resources it needs to operate effectively.
5. Risk Management: I can assist you in identifying and managing financial risks that may affect the company's operations or financial health.
6. Reporting: I can help you prepare financial reports for the board of directors, investors, and other stakeholders, ensuring transparency and accuracy. 

Overall, you can seek my help with any financial matter that may affect the company's success, and I will do my best to provide the necessary support and guidance.

Next, you can feed ChatGPT any information you like to get started on a forecast. The thing to remember is that you are not going to stop on the first try. You will get a result. Analyze it. Clarify some information. Then make another query until you get it right. 

This is iterative. It is supposed to be. It has to be.

Here’s what I feed it next (these are made up numbers but modeled after my own business):

Here is the information I would like you to use, to prepare a forecast for the rest of the year:

The company provides accounting and bookkeeping services, as well as training in accounting and bookkeeping.

Income:

Jan - 64,000

Feb - 78,000

Mar - 72,000

COGS is about $2,000/month – most of that is credit card processing fees.

Expenses:

Payroll is about $30,000/month, which includes $10,000/month in Officers' salaries. That is expected to continue.

Computer and Internet is about $2,000 per month.

Internet Applications a.k.a. SaaS Software is an average of $5,000/month.

Professional Services is about $3,000/month.

QuickBooks Payments Fees are about $200/month.

Web Development is about $3,000/month.

We are launching a new course update in June, which we estimate will bring in an additional $50,000 in revenue that month. 

Then we are launching a course in September, which we estimate will bring in an additional $65,000 in revenues that month. 

And we are launching a major course in November, which we estimate will bring in an additional $100,000 in revenues that month. 

The company has no debt to pay.

Two credit cards are used and paid in full each week, so there is never any interest incurred. 

Almost all revenues are paid in full up front, so there are min to no receivables. 

There is an EIDL Loan on the books with a balance going into the year of $117,000. The interest rate is 3.5% 30 year term that started on May 1, 2020 and the company makes a monthly payment of $595.00 to pay it off a little faster. 

Market conditions:

There are concerns about inflation and how that might impact people's marginal propensity to consume. One assumption is that, for our courses we anticipate that more people will be interested in learning accounting and bookkeeping skills so they can increase their marketability, especially with skills they can use working from home.

The recent Silicon Valley bank implosion and related blow back throughout the banking industry is also a concern, but it appears that all depositors were covered even beyond the FDIC limit of $200,000 and that appears to have upheld confidence and prevented a major banking collapse.

The war between the Ukraine and Russia and the impact on the economy is a concern. 

Big tech layoffs and how that might impact the economy at large may be another concern.

Using the information above please prepare a monthly forecast for April - December in table format.

And here is the response:

It’s a bit simplistic, but as I said earlier, we would want to go a few rounds with this until we get better results. ChatGPT wasn’t very creative about the revenue projections, but we can certainly ask it to repurpose this forecast taking into account the market conditions I mentioned, and how they might impact revenues. 

We’ll do that in a minute, but first I wanted to get our EIDL loan details sketched out:

One caveat is it used the beginning balance I gave it as of 12/31/22. That would be easy to correct, but let’s get back to our forecast…

I went a few more rounds here, and I want to show you each one so you can see the evolution and how I interact with it to improve the results I get.

In this next one, I asked it to factor in some other details, and it came up with its own interpretation of what kind of assumptions to use. I love this, but again the answer is cut short.

So the moral of the story here is we’ve got some work to do, but the time to get in here and get comfortable with this stuff is now. ChatGPT WILL improve, and both Microsoft and Google are aggressively working to outpace OpenAI (the creators of ChatGPT). 

I have also asked ChatGPT to create MACRS depreciation schedules and you saw an example of the EIDL Loan Amortization schedule. All you have to do is feed it the info for any loan – starting date, term, and rate – and ask it to create the loan amortization schedule in table format.

You will run into this limitation, like you see above, in that it will only give you so much output. So it is definitely faster, easier, and more reliable to use a template like this one, but this will change. I promise you!

Use ChatGPT like a CMO

Most accountants, in my experience, are stuck doing their own marketing. It’s almost ironic, because we make fun of our clients who tried to do their own bookkeeping before coming to us, and here we are doing our own version of the same thing. 

Of course, many of us do this because we can’t afford to hire a marketing person. 

So you ask someone like me and I say, “create content, it’s worked really well for me!”

And you say, “ain’t got time for that!”

And I should say, “then I can’t help you,” but that is not in my nature. 

Now you have ChatGPT, who is excellent at writing content. 

Now, you never ever EVER want to have ChatGPT write your content for you. My prediction is that soon enough there will be ways to tell with a high degree of certainty what content has been written by AI, and that will work against you in search rankings, as well as the general court of public opinion. 

In other words, you will lose people’s respect if you do this. And that will produce the opposite effect that you are hoping to accomplish with any content that you publish.

Use ChatGPT to come up with a marketing plan

Let’s get started.

The prompt:

You are my Chief Marketing Officer. 

I need to develop a marketing plan for my accounting and bookkeeping firm. 

I have little or no budget for this, so it comes down to what I can do myself without hiring anyone and keeping in mind that I have to stay on top of the actual work I am paid to do. 

How can I get started?

The reply:

As your Chief Marketing Officer, I understand your constraints and will help you develop a marketing plan for your accounting and bookkeeping firm within your limited budget and time availability. Here are some steps to get started:

1. Define your target audience: Identify your ideal clients and understand their needs, pain points, and preferences. This will help you tailor your marketing efforts more effectively. 
2. Establish your unique value proposition: Determine what sets your accounting and bookkeeping firm apart from competitors. Highlight the specific benefits and advantages you offer to clients.
3. Develop a consistent brand identity: Create a professional logo, tagline, and visual assets that reflect your firm's values and differentiate your services. Ensure consistency across all marketing materials.
4. Create a professional website: Design a user-friendly website that showcases your expertise, services, and contact information. Include compelling content such as testimonials, case studies, and informative blog posts to demonstrate your knowledge.
5. Leverage social media platforms: Establish a presence on relevant social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. Share industry insights, tips, and updates to engage with potential clients and build your professional network.
6. Optimize your online presence: Implement basic search engine optimization (SEO) techniques on your website to improve its visibility in search engine results. Research keywords relevant to your industry and incorporate them into your website content.
7. Content marketing: Produce high-quality content that educates and engages your target audience. This could include blog posts, articles, whitepapers, or video tutorials. Share your content on your website and social media channels to position yourself as an industry expert.
8. Networking and referrals: Attend industry events, join professional organizations, and participate in local business communities to network with potential clients and generate referrals. Actively engage in conversations and offer insights to establish yourself as a trusted advisor.
9. Email marketing: Develop an email list of existing and potential clients. Regularly send out newsletters, updates, or exclusive offers to keep your firm top of mind.
10. Collaborate with complementary businesses: Seek out partnerships with other professionals or businesses whose services complement yours, such as financial advisors or business consultants. Cross-promote each other's services to reach a wider audience.
11. Monitor and measure results: Utilize free analytics tools to track website traffic, social media engagement, and email campaign performance. Analyze the data to understand what strategies are working best and make necessary adjustments.

Remember, consistency and persistence are key in marketing. Allocate specific time slots in your schedule dedicated to marketing activities and set realistic goals. Over time, as your business grows, you can consider allocating more resources to marketing efforts or hiring additional help.

Now we’re talking!

Let’s work backwards here. See that part I marked in bold in that summary paragraph at the end? Let’s do that first:

1. Open up your calendar
2. Find a time where you can book a recurring weekly appointment
3. Set it for a minimum of two hours, ideally more like four in the beginning
4. Book it
5. Make sure it is marked busy
6. Use a unique color and put “[non-negotiable]” just like that, with brackets right in the title of the weekly appointment
7. That solves the “ain’t got time for that” problem. 

Now let’s take that first bullet point from ChatGPT and dig a little deeper.

You can use this format and replace the “niche,” which I put in brackets for you.

The prompt:

Re: 

Define your target audience: identify your ideal clients and understand their needs, pain points, and preferences. This will help you tailor your marketing efforts more effectively.

Can you help me do this?

Give me some questions to answer that will help me develop a very detailed analysis of the following. 

We provide accounting and bookkeeping services for [eCommerce] clients.

Since we work 100% remotely, these clients can be anywhere in the US. Let's focus on our own backyard first to keep it simple.

The Reply:

Certainly! Here are some questions to help you develop a detailed analysis of your target audience, specifically focusing on your local market for accounting and bookkeeping services for eCommerce clients in the US:

1. Who are your potential clients?
2. What types of eCommerce businesses are prevalent in your local market?
3. Are there specific industries or niches that are more prominent?
4. What are their characteristics and demographics?
5. What is the size of their eCommerce business (e.g., small, medium, large)?
6. Are they startups or established businesses?
7. What is their annual revenue range?
8. Do they have a specific target market or customer base?
9. What are their pain points and challenges?
10. What accounting and bookkeeping challenges do eCommerce businesses commonly face?
11. Are there any specific regulatory or compliance issues that they need assistance with?
12. Do they struggle with inventory management, sales tax, or financial reporting?
13. What are their goals and objectives?
14. What are their primary objectives in terms of financial management and growth?
15. Are they looking to optimize their accounting processes or streamline their bookkeeping?
16. Do they need assistance with financial forecasting, budgeting, or cash flow management?
17. How do they currently handle their accounting and bookkeeping?
18. Do they have an in-house accounting team or rely on individual freelancers?
19. Are they using accounting software or tools?
20. Are they satisfied with their current solutions, or do they face any pain points?
21. What are their preferences and values?
22. Do they value personalized services and attention to detail?
23. Are they price-sensitive or willing to invest in quality accounting services?
24. Do they prefer remote services or have a preference for local service providers?
25. How do they make decisions and find service providers?
26. Where do they typically seek accounting and bookkeeping services? (e.g., online platforms, referrals, industry associations)
27. What factors are important to them when choosing a service provider?
28. Do they consider online reviews or testimonials?
29. Are there any local factors that impact your target audience?
30. Are there specific local regulations or tax laws that affect eCommerce businesses?
31. Are there industry-specific events or associations that you can leverage?

By answering these questions, you'll have a clearer understanding of your target audience's needs, preferences, and pain points. This will enable you to tailor your marketing efforts to effectively reach and resonate with your potential clients in the local market.

• Now go back to your calendar, where you booked this “marketing” time
• In a new browser tab type, “docs.new”

Copy and paste these questions into this new document

• Name it
• You will find this document in your root My Drive folder in Google Drive
• Move it to a Marketing Folder under your company in Google Drive
• Bookmark this document. Put the link right in that calendar appointment
• Or if you are a Notion user, create a page for this in Notion and paste the document URL into that page 

You can use what I generated with ChatGPT for you, but I also want you to prompt ChatGPT yourself. It’s important that you start from the beginning with the same or similar prompt. 

These transcripts are iterative, so you want to stay in this transcript for all marketing related questions. This is how ChatGPT will learn about your firm’s marketing, and it will get better and better at helping you. If you ask each question in a new chat, you will not get that benefit. You will be starting over with each prompt instead of building on context as you go. 

Once you have your own CMO Chat caught up and you complete this first exercise, you can go back and follow the same process with each of the other items in the original response. 

Use the same format – reference the specific item by copying and pasting it. Then ask it to expand on that and give you steps to complete. 

If you stick to your weekly appointment with yourself and follow this process, you will be amazed before you are halfway through this outline, at the difference it makes.

There it is folks! Two different use cases for how to use ChatGPT to buy back time and help your firm grow. Use ChatGPT like a CFO and a CMO!

If you have any questions, you know how to find me!