Set Up Your First Salon AI Assistant in 5 Simple Steps

Are you still waiting for the perfect moment to try AI in your salon business? While you're dithering, darlings, the competition is getting faster, leaner, and more efficient. It's time to jump in. So today I'm showing you how to set up your first AI assistant. No tech panic, no fluff, just five clear steps to make AI your new salon sidekick. Let's jump in, shall we? Hello, hello, hello, my salon friends. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope. Phil Jackson, your queen of salons, here again, coming in your ears with another dose of Wise Owl Wisdom. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope. And my goodness, we're nearly at the end of Q2. And I'm hearing some very strong results at the end of Q2. How's it been for you? I'd love to hear. Why not reach out and let me know? Phil at buildyoursalon.com as always. Always my email address. You know, I love hearing from my salon owner friends anyway. But we've had some really strong coaching results. I'm super, super proud. I'm always proud of you. Anyway, my loves, the fact that you're still in the game fills my heart with joy. And the fact that you're listening to my little podcast, well, that just warms my cockles too. So what are we doing today? Well, we're still here in episode three of our AI takeover. So June has been AI month. If you've been lurking, listening, wondering if AI is for you, whether it's just a fad, maybe it's something that only other people are going to use. Well, today is the day that we break the back of it, darlings. I want you to jump in with both feet. And I just have a small bit of reassurance for you before we get going. Darling, you're not going to break the internet by trying AI. Nothing's going to change in your business unless you actually implement anything off the back of AI. It's not going to do anything. It's a self-contained experiment unless you choose to let it break the seal. So jump in, have some fun with it, and let's start simple. So step one in my five-start process is to choose a platform. Now, lots and lots and lots of people think AI means chat GPT. And for lots of people, it does, to be honest with you. But there are lots of other alternatives out there. And it does seem that every couple of minutes, a new one pops up onto my radar, and I do my best to keep ahead. But I'm going to recommend that you keep things super, super simple to start with. And I'm going to recommend that you either get yourself an account with chat GPT or Gemini. Google has their own platform called Gemini. And they're going to be my recommendations because they are both free to start.

Both of them are browser-based, which means that you can carry them in your pocket. You can use them on your desktop, laptop, iPad, whatever it is that you're using. And also, I think the free versions are pretty generous and pretty comprehensive. There's not much that you can't do with the free versions of those two. But I'm going to ask you to stick to just one for now. And you might hear that there's a new tool popping up every 15 seconds. But here's the truth. The competition between AI platforms is fierce right now. And they're all copying each other's features ridiculously fast. So you might hear that chat GPT can't do something that another platform can. But that's not going to be the case for long. Or you might hear that someone's just released a new version, which is leaps and bounds ahead for certain topics. But that won't be the case for long. They're going to catch up. So whichever one you start with is likely to have whatever shiny new thing you're after very, very soon. So I'm going to suggest that you master one platform. You learn to use it. Learn to love it. Because that's what matters. The next step is to give your AI platform some context. So we're going to use it as an assistant. But these AI tools, they're not psychic. They can research an awful lot, by the way. They are very powerful. But they do need a clear direction. And we call this context. So we're going to give AI your salon's vibe. And you only need to do this once because it's then saved inside AI. And then we can reuse the same chat or the same prompt or the same resource to train AI again, again and again. So a very basic version would be to tell AI the role that you want it to have. So you would say something like, you are my salon admin assistant. And then tell it about your business. So I run a beauty salon called Phil's Beauty. We are fun and professional and a bit cheeky and a bit sassy. Whatever feels like it fits for you. And then tell the assistant what it's going to help you with. So you help me write emails and social captions. And also you take care of the stock control in my salon business. And that will be enough context for it to make a start, to be honest with you.

It will start to try and feel a little bit like you instead of a robot. And it will get better and better over time. But it will only get better over time if you give your feedback. So once you ask it to produce something like an email or a social caption, and you will need to do some polishing. You'll need to do some refining. You'll need to do some editing. What I would then do, and I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, is copy and paste the final version that you're going to go with. Give it back to AI and say, this is what I went with. These are the changes that I made and why. I had this, for example. So AI writes an awful lot of my emails for me now. Or at least it makes a start. It gives me the first draft almost every time these days. And it seems to have hooked on to the fact that some people think I'm a little bit sassy. Now I don't know where it got that impression from, my darling. Perhaps you agree. Perhaps you don't. But part of that sassiness was that it started using certain language. And it picked up on the fact that I use words like darling an awful lot. So I do say my salon darlings, my salon friends, those kinds of things. And then it started picking up a couple of words that I don't use. So it started calling people sweetheart. And I don't ever call people sweetheart or sweetie generally. Not really. It's not something you'll hear me say an awful lot. And the other thing it started coming up with a lot was babe. It was calling people babe. And I never call people babe. It always reminds me of that little pink pig. So it's not something I would use. Now, unless I tell ChatGPT that I don't use those things, it's going to keep coming up with it. So I gave it the final version of a couple of posts. And I said, I've taken those words out and swapped it for something that I would say. And then, of course, what it's done is learnt better, deeper, richer context. It knows more around my brand voice. It's not going to make those mistakes again. Running a small business is hard enough. You shouldn't need a tech degree just to keep up. AI DIY is your monthly shortcut to earning more, working less, and finally feeling in control with the power of AI on your side. Each month, you'll get fresh tutorials on marketing, money and mindset. Plus step-by-step prompts and support that makes this feel easy. No jargon, no overwhelm. Just smart tools that fit your business and your life. Join AI DIY now at philjackson.coach. Look clever, sound brilliant, work less. Step number three is to start testing your new assistant with a real task.

Now, lots of people will play with AI. And that's by all means something you can do if you want to. But pick something useful. Pick something small. But pick something that you actually could do with a bit of help with. That you could do with getting the job done this week. So you might choose to ask it to, for example, write an Instagram caption for a post around a colour correction promo. Make it upbeat, friendly and no more than 100 words. And please use lots and lots of emojis. That will be a really good prompt for you to get a decent first draft of an Instagram caption. Or help me write a text message to a client whose appointment I need to schedule. Be really clear, but really warm and a little bit apologetic. So ask it to rewrite things, shorten them, make it funnier, whatever you want. It's a bit like brainstorming with a super polite junior team member who never takes a lunch break. And the other thing that will never happen is you will never offend AI either. You don't have to worry too much about its feelings. So have a play, but have a play with something that you could actually use the help with. Because at the end, you're going to get something that you can actually implement into your business. Step number four. So what we've just done, I've just given you an example of what we call a prompt. And this is where the real time saving happens. Because I want you to start, for example, maybe a Google document or a notes app on your phone. And start keeping a bank of prompts that you have got good result with and you can reuse. So whether you ask it to write a job ad for a new stylist who values creativity and teamwork. Or to create a follow-up message for clients who haven't booked in for eight weeks. Or to draft a retail caption promoting some protection. Just keep a note of those prompts so that you can copy and paste them next time. So one prompt you get multiple uses out of. If you think of it as your kind of content kit. These are like the buttons that you can press to ask AI to carry out tasks in the future. And what you might find for more complicated tasks is those prompts can turn into whole paragraph pages of instructions over time. It's much easier if you've got a document somewhere so that we can copy and paste. And then step number five is I really want you to make this a habit.

I want you to have a weekly habit of using AI for something. Eventually you'll get to the stage, a bit like me I hope, where you'll be going through your day, carrying out tasks and wondering out loud whether AI could make this job easier. You don't have to automate your whole business overnight. But I'm going to encourage you to choose one area to get into the habit of using AI. So perhaps you do your newsletters on a Monday. Why not get AI to write your newsletters for you? Or perhaps on a Tuesday you do your stock count and create your orders. Why not get AI to create those orders for you? And if you go back to my episode on the 3rd of June, I'll give you an example of how we can use AI to do just that. Or maybe Wednesday is your social media day and perhaps AI could help you draft all the captions for your posts. Or maybe on a Friday you have your team meeting and on the 3rd of June I told you how we could be using AI to keep notes on your team meetings too. So just choose one weekly habit to use AI consistently and let's build from there. So you've just built your first salon AI assistant and that didn't hurt at all, did it darling? And you didn't break anything. Nobody died. I always say if there's no blood and no vomit, it's been a really, really good day. And now also, by the way, my loves, you're ahead of most of your competition too. If you want to make this a real part of your business where AI can help run your marketing, your money and your mindset and goals, I have my new program, AI DIY, which is now launched and open for enrollment. No jargon, no overwhelm, just practical workflows and templates that you can plug straight into your life and business. Philjackson.coach is the link. I'm going to put it in the show notes as well. Go check it out. I would love to see you in there helping you on your journey to using AI to simplify and grow your business. Just seven short days until I'm coming in your ears again with another dose of my Wise Owl wisdom. And until then, take care. Sit down and see what's going on with the queen of salons. Hair, beauty and more successful tips for business owners. All on build your salon. All on build your salon.