Forum Discussion

EnergizeUs's avatar
EnergizeUs
Contributor 5
22 days ago

Has Anyone Here Built Their Own GPT Yet? Or Just Using ChatGPT Like Google?

Hey everyone just curious where the community stands with AI right now.

I’ve seen a lot of folks using ChatGPT to look stuff up (like Google 2.0), but I’m wondering if anyone here has gone deeper? 

  • Has anyone tried to build or train their own GPT yet?
  •  Or customized prompts/workflows to actually support your day-to-day?

We’ve been working on building a custom GPT model trained on contractor logic — estimating, soft skills, job-site communication, pricing, SOPs, etc. For our company now, instead of broad knowledge.

I see huge value in contractors having their own smart assistant, not just a chatbot. Something that speaks the language of our company. 

Is that something you’d use or find helpful?
Curious to hear what direction you guys are taking.

client communications
construction
contracts & contracting
electrical contracting
handyman
hvac
installation services
plumbing
quoting
reporting & business insights

6 Replies

  • jaf's avatar
    jaf
    Contributor 2
    18 days ago

    Hey! Yeah, I've definitely dove deeper than just using it for quick searches.

    What I'm doing: I've been using ChatGPT extensively for creating SOPs, crafting customer responses for specific scenarios, and developing our social media strategy (both planning and content creation). I've also built a custom GPT that's currently supporting our customer service operations.

    How it works: The main purpose is to act as a real-time support tool for our CS rep. They can ask questions about our services and procedures, and the GPT outputs step-by-step instructions, creates documentation notes, and generates client responses in our company's tone. Right now it works as a copy-and-paste function - the CS rep inputs a quote query or client message, and gets back a ready-to-use response for our texting platform/CRM.

    What's next: Planning to hook it up to our pricing system so it can quote on the spot, and connect it to our cloud SOPs so I don't have to keep updating it manually every time something changes.

    Your contractor-specific assistant sounds awesome! Having something that actually gets the industry instead of giving generic responses would be huge. We're a small operation, so anything that helps us punch above our weight class is worth its weight in gold.

    What's been the biggest hurdle in training yours so far?

    • jaf's avatar
      jaf
      Contributor 2
      18 days ago

      Forgot to add, I've also set up a Stream Deck, where one button click copies whatever's highlighted, opens the GPT window, types the prompt (like "client said" or "here's a website query"), pastes the text, and hits enter. Takes what used to be a multi-step process down to literally one button push.

    • EnergizeUs's avatar
      EnergizeUs
      Contributor 5
      18 days ago

      I love this and the fact you are taking the proactive approach in designing your own. It takes a special type of mind to jump into this topic. 

      So right off the bat, very impressive. 

      The last year and a half we have been traveling the US meeting contractors and hosting podcasts with them to learn what motivated them and how they became the contractors they are today. 

      We been learning and documenting all the pain points industry wide and then created our own "blueprint" or challenge list we see everyone typically run into. 

      Thats the most recent, plus im a very calculated person, when I started contracting, I probably made every mistake in the book and then wrote it down on how I overcame it. What I should have done before the problem / after etc etc. 

      so all this data, I write up and created my own SOP for running our business. I created graphics and lessons for myself so I wouldn't repeat the same ones over. 

      The hardest part of the GPT is educating it, giving it, its own foundation. 

      if you dont you get the generic replies everyone sees today. 

      For example lots of GPT responses all have the same language, they also give the same grammar indicators. 

      We are rolling into a new phase of Ai where now you can see if someone else is using GPT already. 

      So if you dont train your own, you may be using Ai but you will not grow. 

      So the foundation, learning, and input...aka DATA is the most important, and hardest.
      Plus if you have a bad foundation - then your responses will be wrong. 

      What do you think?

      • jaf's avatar
        jaf
        Contributor 2
        12 days ago

        Absolutely agree, foundation is everything! You're right about the generic response problem. I've definitely noticed those AI grammar patterns (the em dashes, overly structured responses) showing up even when I think I've trained it properly.

        What's been working for me is feeding it back the actual responses I ended up using after making changes. I'll tell it "FYI, I ended up sending this response instead" and paste the real version so it learns from what actually worked versus what it originally suggested.

        Your approach of documenting mistakes and building SOPs around the solutions makes total sense. That real-world experience is way more valuable for training than just general business knowledge.

        How are you handling the foundation-building? Are you feeding it your documented lessons gradually or building the entire knowledge base first?

        The podcast research sounds like a solid way to gather industry-specific data. Having those real contractor pain points has to make the responses much more authentic than generic business advice.

  • BHS's avatar
    BHS
    Contributor 3
    12 days ago

    ryaantuttle​ Has done some interesting things with ChatGPT and job quoting.  Perhaps he can chime in here.