Ok, so today I want to go over something that completely changed how I use AI in my business. If you've ever tried to give ChatGPT or Claude a giant wall of instructions and gotten a messy, half-wrong result back, this is for you. I'm writing this because most business owners I talk to are using AI wrong. They dump everything into one massive prompt. All the context, all the instructions, all the formatting requests. Everything at once. And then they're surprised when the output is garbage. We call these "mega-prompts" and they are the number one reason AI fails for small business owners. The fix is something called Prompt Chaining. And once you understand it, you'll never go back to the old way. Link to Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewmetros/p/how-to-make-ai-do-complex-work-for?r=4e36e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Ok, so today I want to go over something that nobody in the VA space talks about enough. Using your virtual assistant to protect your health. Not just your revenue. Not just your time. Your actual physical and mental health. A business cannot exceed the health of its leader! If you break down, everything breaks down. Your health is the highest-yielding asset in your entire operation. So we need to start treating it that way. I'm writing this because the past 5 years are starting to catch up with me. I've had these long stretches of weeks where I am just unbelievably exhausted. Not "I need a coffee" exhausted. I mean the kind where your body is telling you something is wrong and you keep ignoring it. It really wasn't until the last 2 months where I made a real shift. I started delegating more of my life to my team. Stopped staring at my phone all the time. Started eating dinner at a reasonable hour. Forcing myself to shut my phone off an hour before bed. Telling myself that 8 to 9 hours of sleep is actually what a human being needs and that I don't need to be a warrior every single second of my life. Listening to my body more and knowing that when I'm exhausted, that extra 30 minutes in bed is fine, and that I don't need to kill myself at the gym today. And all of this was only possible because I handed more responsibility to my team. They have given me this space to breathe. Here's what I've come to realize. The top CEOs don't answer every message. They understand that their team is a representation of them. When a client interfaces with your senior leadership, they are interfacing with you. Your team consolidates those conversations, brings you the important stuff, and your responses get output through them. This whole idea that you as the CEO need to personally touch every single thing in your business is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Your employees are digital representations of you. And you need to feel okay with that morally, otherwise I PROMISE you will burn out.

Business owners come to me burnt out, doing everything themselves, and they want to hire help. Great. We build them a team. And then 60-90 days later they're frustrated because their new VA isn't doing things exactly the way they would. Here's what I've learned after placing hundreds of virtual assistants with over 650 companies. When someone is churning through VAs and can't keep anyone, 9 times out of 10 the problem is the owner, not the assistant. That sounds harsh. But let me explain. When you build a system and you're the one doing everything, you develop muscle memory. You know all the shortcuts, all the context, all the little judgment calls that you make without even thinking about it. And then you hand it to someone who has less context and expect them to perform at your level in a few weeks. That's unrealistic. It takes time for someone to grow the muscles to replicate your output consistently. Not weeks. Not months. Years. I'm telling you from experience. The people on my team who are exceptional today were not exceptional on Day 1. They grew into it because I gave them the space to grow. And this took YEARS. An employee is not an entrepreneur. They will never care as much as you do. They won't have the same grit or obsession that drives you. That's not a defect. That's just the nature of the relationship. And if you can't accept that, you will keep burning through people and convince yourself that delegation doesn't work. And you will continuously saying “this person sucks”, “that company sucks”…. Etc. etc. etc. So this guide isn't just about how to delegate. It's about fixing the expectations that are keeping you stuck. Link to Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewmetros/p/youre-not-bad-at-delegating-youre?r=4e36e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Ok, so today I want to go over something that will make or break your sales and marketing. Copywriting. I'm not exaggerating. Good copy is what gets meetings on your calendar. Good copy is what generates that momentum where your business feels like it's going to the next level. Good copy is what gets you to the point where you can't fill enough orders and you're hiring to keep up with demand. Bad copy? Crickets. Wasted ad spend. Leads that ghost you. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. Services, products on Amazon, Airbnb, coaching, home services, whatever. If you're an entrepreneur, you need money coming in. And money is like oxygen. It's not everything, but you can't last too long without it. Good copy is what keeps that oxygen flowing. The problem is most small business owners think copywriting is about describing their product really well. Better photos. Better adjectives. More features listed. That is a mistake. Copy isn't about selling your product. It's about painting a picture of the life your customer wants and showing them you're the bridge. If you only talk about how big a TV screen is or how fast a car goes, you are talking to the customer's brain, but you are losing their heart. To really connect, you have to show them how your product or service helps them become the person they've always wanted to be. You are selling the "desired self," not the widget. This guide shows you the method. People buy ideas, not products. If you can show a person their "desired self" and provide a clear pathway to get there, they will buy from you. Link to Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewmetros/p/how-to-write-copy-that-actually-makes?r=4e36e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Ok, so today I want to go over something that I think a lot of business owners need to hear. And it might sting a little. Most of you started your business for freedom. Freedom to control your schedule. Freedom to be at your kid's soccer game on a Tuesday afternoon. Freedom to not answer to someone else. That's the real reason. Yes, some of you love the craft. I get that. But if we're being honest, the craft alone wasn't enough to make you take the leap. It was the promise of a life on your terms. So here's the irony. You started a business for freedom and then built yourself a job that gives you less freedom than the one you left. You're working more hours. You're more stressed. You can't take a vacation without everything falling apart. And you're doing work that has nothing to do with the craft you love. You're answering emails, chasing invoices, fixing tech issues. That's not running a business. That's being a very expensive employee of your own company. Being a business owner means delegating. That's the actual job. The fulfillment, the day-to-day operations, the repetitive stuff. That has to go to other people. Not because you can't do it. Because doing it is what keeps you stuck. Only about 3 out of every 100 owners actually figure this out. I call them the 3% Club. They stopped doing and started leading. This guide shows you why and how to join them. Link to Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewmetros/p/the-3-club-how-to-scale-your-business?r=4e36e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true