Welcome to the Deep Dive! You know, we talk all
the time about how fast AI is moving. Breakthroughs
seem to happen, like, every day. But for a lot
of us, how we actually use AI, it's still kind
of superficial, right? Just asking for funny
poems, maybe generating a cool picture. More
out of curiosity, really. But here's the real
challenge, the thing hiding underneath. While
everyone's sort of experimenting, very few people
genuinely understand how to harness AI's, well,
its raw power to build a real, sustainable, It's
this amazing tool, but how do you actually flip
that switch? How do you make it a wealth generating
engine for yourself? And that's exactly what
we're digging into today. This isn't going to
be another surface level chat about AI buzzwords.
Forget that. We're doing a proper deep dive into
seven specific essential AI skills. Skills that
businesses, well, they're not just interested
in them. They are desperate for people who have
these skills and they're willing to pay top dollar
in 2025 and, you know, looking beyond that too.
Yeah, that's the key. Whether you've got a business
idea simmering or you just want to seriously
level up. up your career, getting good at even
one or two of these, it's going to put you miles
ahead. You'll create this huge gap between yourself
and everyone else who's just using AI for the
basics. So get ready. We're about to map out
how you can turn AI from just an interesting
toy into a powerful financial tool. OK, let's
kick things off. Skill number one, prompt engineering.
So. Think of AI like this incredibly powerful
jet engine. Prompt engineering is the control
panel. And maybe the pilot, too. It's how you
talk to it. Exactly. It's how you give it those
precise instructions to get it to do amazing
things. And it's absolutely foundational. It
unlocks pretty much everything else. And get
this. Here's a pretty wild statistic I saw recently.
Something like 78 % of all AI projects actually
fail. 78 %? Really? Why? Is the tech not good
enough? No, that's the crazy part. It's not usually
the technology. It's the communication. It's
the gap between the human asking and the AI understanding.
Companies are basically throwing away mountains
of money just because they haven't figured out
how to. you know, talk to these systems properly.
Wow, so it's a communication breakdown, essentially.
At its core, yeah, a very expensive communication
breakdown. It shows that mastering AI really
starts with mastering how you ask the questions.
Right, so if you get good at this, you're not
just getting slightly better results, you're
getting results that are, what, faster? More
creative? And, critically, results that are actually
aligned with what you intended to get. It's the
difference between the AI giving you back some
you know, mediocre first draft and prompting
it to deliver a strategic masterpiece that just
nails it. So the trick is you just start treating
these AI systems less like a search box and more
like a maybe a genius employee. A genius employee.
OK, I like that. Yeah, they can do incredible
things, but they aren't mind readers. They need
really clear, detailed, structured instructions.
We actually have a model for this sometimes called
the professional prompt structure. You can remember
it as our CTAF. RCTAF, what does that stand for?
Roll, context, task, audience, and format. Let
me give you a quick example. Instead of just
saying, write me an ad for a new coffee shop,
which is super vague, right? Yeah, very vague.
You use the RCTAF structure. Like for this fictional
shop, the Saigon Brew, roll. Act like a marketing
expert, 10 years in high -end food and beverage,
specialized in coffee shops. See? You give it
a persona. OK, got it. Roll, then context. I'm
launching the Saigon Brew in District 1, Ho Chi
Minh City. It's pour -over, cold brew, quiet
vibe, targets office workers, expatch. Price
is about 20 % above average. Lots of detail.
Ah, setting the scene. Exactly. Then the task.
Write a Facebook post for the grand opening week.
Create curiosity. Emphasize the quality beans,
the workspace. Call to action is visit for a
15 % discount. Very specific goal. Right. Audience.
Coffee lovers, office workers, 2540, expats in
each CMC who like quality. Who are we talking
to? Audience. Makes sense. And finally, format.
Catchy headline under 10 words. Body about 150
words. Two, three paragraphs. Clear CTA. Use
three, four emojis. How should it look? Format.
Okay, R -C -T -A -F. I can see how that gets
you a much better result than just write an ad.
Night and day difference. And that roll part,
that's huge. Roll -based prompting. Telling the
AI who to be. changes everything. It's tone,
it's knowledge, it's style. Like you could say,
act as a senior strategy consultant from McKinsey.
Analyze the top three mobile payment trends in
Southeast Asia by 2026. Suddenly, you're getting
high -level strategic thinking. Without the McKinsey
bill. Exactly. Then there's example -based prompting
or few -shot training. Instead of explaining
a style forever, you just show it a couple of
perfect examples. Like teaching by showing. Precisely.
Yeah. Give it two or three marketing emails you
like or articles by someone whose voice you want
to mimic. It learns fast. And for really complex
stuff, there's chain of thought prompting. You
don't ask for the final answer straight away.
You tell the AI, think step by step. Break it
down for it. Yeah. Like for a business plan.
First, analyze market demand. Second, identify
customer segments. Third, evaluate difficulty.
And so on. It forces logical thinking. You get
much more thorough results. Okay, so mastering
prompt engineering. It really is the matter key,
isn't it? It unlocks how you use all the other
AI tools effectively. It lets you be the director,
which leads us perfectly into skill number two,
AI automation. Once you can talk to AI, how about
getting it to do all that boring, repetitive
stuff for you? There was this Slack statistic
recently. It said office workers spend something
like 40 % of their time on low -value, repetitive
tasks. 40%. Yeah, it's staggering when you think
about it. It's almost two full workdays every
single week just gone, wasted on stuff anyone
could do, or maybe an AI could do. I know I've
wasted hours on things like that. Absolutely.
And that's the problem AI automation solves.
It lets you build these, well, intelligence systems
that just handle those tasks. Two under four
seven. No getting tired, no making silly mistakes.
It frees up human time and brain power for the
stuff that actually matters, you know? Strategy,
creativity, talking to customers. You're essentially
buying back your time. And the good news is you
don't need to be some coding genius to get started,
right? There are tools for this. Oh, definitely.
There are some great beginner -friendly options.
Zapier is a classic example. Think of it like,
Training wheels for automation. Training wheels,
okay. Connects thousands of apps, over 6 ,000
I think, with really simple trigger action logic.
Like when someone fills out my website contact
form, that's the trigger. Then automatically
add them to MailChampagneD, send a Slack message
to sales. That's the action. Simple, but incredibly
useful. Yeah, I can see that saving a ton of
manual work. What about more complex stuff? Well,
then you might look at something like Make .com.
It used to be called IntegraMath. It lets you
build more sophisticated workflows, almost like
visual decision trees. Decision trees? Yeah,
with multiple steps and branching logic. Imagine,
say, a home repair business. Trigger, job mark
complete. Action one, send a thank you text.
Action two, wait three days. Then action three
uses a router. If they leave a five -star review,
send a 10 % discount code. But TIF, the review
is less than three stars, automatically create
a support ticket and alert a manager. Wow, okay.
That's pretty smart. Very tailored follow up.
Exactly. And for people who want even more power
and control, maybe over their data privacy too,
there's n8n .io. It's open source, super flexible.
Got it. So how do you turn this into a high paying
skill? Just learn Zapier. Well, you can, but
the real money, the profitable approach is specialization.
Become an automation expert for a specific niche.
A niche, like dentists. There were lawyers. Exactly
like that. Pick an industry, dental practices,
law firms, real estate agents, whatever. Then
really dive deep, research their world, watch
their YouTube channels, read their trade magazines,
hang out in their Facebook groups. Find out what
makes them tick. And find out their pain points.
What repetitive tasks are driving them crazy?
What takes up way too much time? The best way,
just talk to them. Ask actual business owners
what's the single most frustrating time -consuming
task you have to deal with. Okay, so find the
pain. Find the pain. Then build a specific done
-for -you automation package that solves that
specific pain. Not just general automation, but
say a patient appointment and follow -up automation
system for dental clinics. Ah, so you're selling
a solution, not just a tool. Precisely. And because
it's specialized, solving a known expensive problem
for them, you can charge way more. Like, three
to five times what a generalist freelancer might
charge. You're the expert for their specific
problem. That makes a lot of sense. You're saving
them time, probably helping them make more money.
Tangible value. Huge value. Now, moving up the
ladder a bit. Skill number three, AI development.
If prompt engineering and automation can get
you into six figures, actually learning to build
AI applications, that opens doors to, well, $200
,000, $300 ,000, potentially much more. Okay,
so this is moving beyond using existing tools.
Right. This is about creating custom AI solutions
from maybe not scratch, but closer to it. Building
applications that solve unique business problems
that off the shelf tools just can't handle. So
if someone wants to go down this path, what are
the core technical skills they need? Where do
they start? Python seems to come up a lot. Python
is definitely key. It's kind of the default language
for AI right now. It's known for being relatively
easier to learn than some other languages, which
helps. But the main thing is its ecosystem. It
has these massive libraries, TensorFlow, PyTorch,
Scikit -learn, that handle a lot of the really
complex math and algorithms for you. Makes building
powerful AI models much more accessible. OK,
so Python first. What else? You mentioned APIs
before. Right, AI APIs. API stands for Application
Programming Interface. Think of it like a messenger.
A messenger. Yeah, it lets your custom application
talk to and use the power of those huge pre -trained
AI models, like OpenAI's GPT -4 or Anthropix
quad, without you having to build that massive
model yourself. Ah, so you can plug into their
brain, basically. Essentially, yes. So instead
of you going to the chat GPT website to generate
something, your custom app can call the API and
get, say, product descriptions generated automatically
for thousands of items on an e -commerce site.
OK, Python, APIs, what's the third piece? This
one's maybe less glamorous, but totally critical,
data handling. data handling, cleaning things
up. Exactly. Cleaning, organizing, structuring
data. Most businesses have tons of data, but
it's often messy, inconsistent, stuck in different
places. Being able to prepare that data so an
AI can actually understand and learn from it
is a hugely valuable skill. Because you know
the old saying, garbage in, garbage out. It's
especially true for AI. Right. Bad data leads
to bad AI results. Makes sense. How does someone
learn this stuff practically? Just read books.
Books help. But the best way is by doing. Start
with a personal project. Build something simple
for yourself, like maybe an AI tool to automatically
categorize your bank statements, or one that
summarizes news articles you want to read. The
act of building teaches you way more. OK, build
something small first. Then maybe look at platforms
like Kaggle. It's a huge online community for
data science and machine learning. Companies
post real business problems, real data sets.
and people compete to solve them using AI. Yeah.
You get to practice on real world challenges,
see how top developers approach problems, learn
from their code. It's an amazing learning resource.
So realistically, what's the learning curve like
here if you're not already a coder? Are we talking
months, years? It depends on your focus, obviously.
Yeah. But for Python basics relevant to AI, you
could get reasonably proficient in, say, a few
dedicated months. Learning to use APIs comes
after that. with practice. Honestly, sometimes
the hardest part isn't the raw coding, is learning
how to think about a business problem in a way
AI can tackle it and then wrestling with that
data. But the payoff is potentially huge. Definitely.
You're solving complex, unique problems few others
can. That commands a premium. OK, let's shift
gears slightly. Skill number four, AI data analysis.
You mentioned data handling. This sounds related,
but different. The opportunity here seems massive.
Most businesses are just like Swimming in data,
right. Sales figures, website clicks, customer
info. Exactly. They're sitting on a potential
gold mine of insights, but most are barely scratching
the surface. Traditional data analysis, the kind
businesses have done for years, mostly tells
you what happened. You know, sales went down
5 % last month. Useful, but limited. Right, looking
backwards. AI -powered analysis goes way beyond
that. It can tell you what will happen. that's
predictive analysis. And even better, what you
should do about it that's prescriptive analysis.
OK, give me an example. So instead of just sales
dropped 5%, AI might say, OK, based on all these
trends we're seeing, sales are likely to drop
another 7 % next month. But we recommend running
a targeted discount campaign aimed specifically
at customer group X, because our analysis shows
they have the highest probability of churning
soon based on their recent behavior. Whoa. That's
actionable. That's telling you exactly what lever
to pull. Precisely. And the reason AI can do
this is scale. The human brain just can't compute
correlations across thousands of data points
coming in daily from like 10 different systems.
It's impossible. Too much noise. Right. But AI
can analyze every single point. It finds these
incredibly complex, subtle patterns that no human
would ever spot, like Maybe it discovers that
blog posts about topic Y only when published
on Tuesday mornings consistently lead to the
highest conversion rate for product Z two weeks
later, but only for customers in a specific city.
No way a person finds that manually. Absolutely
not. Or it can predict which customer is about
to leave before they even consciously decide,
giving you a chance to step in and save them.
So how do you get started with this skill? Do
you need a PhD in statistics? Not necessarily.
You definitely need to learn SQL structured query
language. That's the fundamental language for
talking to databases where most business data
lives. It's how you ask questions of the data.
Surprisingly learnable. Then you can leverage
tools that already have AI built in. Platforms
like Tableau or Microsoft Power BI are adding
more and more AI features for forecasting, anomaly
detection, deep dives, often without you needing
to write tons of code. So the tools are getting
smarter, too. Definitely. And you can even use
the large language models themselves, like ChatGPT.
Its advanced data analysis mode lets you just
upload a file, like an Excel spreadsheet, and
then ask questions in plain English. Analyze
these sales figures and tell me the top three
insights for boosting revenue. It can do a surprising
amount of analysis just from that. That's pretty
amazing. So an AI data analyst isn't just reporting
numbers. They're actively finding ways to grow
the business. Exactly. Optimizing pricing, forecasting
inventory, finding profitable customer segments,
personalizing marketing. It all leads directly
to revenue. That's why businesses need this skill
badly. OK. Moving on to still number five, AI
copywriting. This feels very practical. Every
single business needs words, right? Website text,
emails, social media ads, video scripts. The
list is endless. Copywriting is that skill of
using words to get someone to do something. It's
absolutely universal. It's the art and science
of persuasion through text. And AI has just completely
stormed into this field. Tools from the everyday
chat GPT up to specialized platforms like Jasper
or Copy .ai, they can generate really high quality
content now and at incredible speed. And the
impact on the bottom line can be huge, right?
You mentioned an example. Yeah, think about a
sales webinar. Let's say your current script,
maybe one you wrote yourself, keeps about 20
% of people engaged right through to the pitch.
OK, 20 % stay. Now imagine using AI to optimize
that script. testing different hooks, refining
the emotional journey, tailoring the language
to the specific audience you invited, maybe that
AI -optimized script keeps 80 % engaged. Wow,
20 % finance, 80%. That's a massive difference.
Huge. Now, assume your pitch converts 10 % of
engaged viewers. With the AI script, you could
literally make four times the revenue from the
exact same number of people who initially showed
up. Four times the revenue. Just from better
words. Just from better AI enhanced words. That's
the power. It's directly measurable impact. But
the advanced technique isn't just asking, write
me an ad. It's about properly training the AI
on a specific brand's voice and strategy. How
do you do that? You create what's called a brand
voice document. This is super detailed. It outlines
the brand's mission, target customer personas,
the exact tone, like are they playful, formal,
edgy? It includes specific jargon they use or
avoid, and critically give it examples of good
and bad copy they've used before. So you're building
a style guide for the AI. Exactly. A comprehensive
one. Then you literally paste the entire document
into the AI's context window when you give it
a prompt. I see it at the whole rulebook. Yep.
And then you give it a specific command, like,
OK, you've memorized this whole brand voice document.
Now act as our professional copywriter. Write
five email subject lines for our summer sale,
specifically targeting persona group A. from
the document. Ah, so it's not just writing generic
copy anymore. It's writing your copy. Precisely.
It becomes like your own in -house copywriter,
steeped in your brand. It allows for incredibly
fast, consistent on -brand content creation.
That's a serious advantage. You're basically
equipping yourself to drive sales and engagement
directly. Huge value. Absolutely. Now let's talk
about skill number six, AI -assisted software
development. This one feels like a game changer.
For so long, if you had a great idea for an app
or a tool, you either had to spend years learning
to code yourself, or you had to find and pay
expensive developers. That was a massive barrier.
Totally. So many ideas probably died just because
of that hurdle. Exactly. But now the revolution
is happening. Because AI can help you build stuff
now, even if you're not a hardcore coder. Yeah,
that's the exciting part. Tools like GitHub Copilot.
It's like having an AI programmer sitting next
to you, suggesting code. sometimes whole functions
as you type. It learns your style, anticipates
what you need. Like an intelligent autocomplete
for code? A very intelligent one. Yeah. Then
you have platforms like Replet, where you can
literally describe the software you want to build
in plain English, and it starts generating the
code for you. You just tell it what to build.
Serious getting closer and closer to that and
even the no code platforms like bubble which
already let you build apps visually They're integrating
AI now to help you design databases build complex
workflows essentially making it faster and easier
than ever Okay, so the barrier to building is
coming way down. How does this become a high
value skill? It becomes incredibly valuable when
you combine this AI assistance with niche expertise
Just like with automation It lets you create
exclusive custom solutions. Okay, give me an
example. Alright, imagine you know a lot about,
say, local construction businesses. You know
their biggest headache is creating accurate quotes
quickly. It's manual, error -prone, custom jobs.
Right, I can see that being a pain point. Using
these AI -assisted tools, even if you're not
a master coder, you could build them a custom
quoting tool. Something simple, maybe, but tailored
exactly to them. It factors in their specific
material suppliers, their local labor rates,
their typical profit margins. Your tool nobody
else has built just for their workflow. Exactly.
And that's where the value explodes. You're no
longer just a freelancer charging, I don't know,
$3 ,000 for a generic website tweak. You're a
solutions provider offering an exclusive custom
tool that solves a major business problem. Maybe
you charge $15 ,000 for that tool. because they
can't get it anywhere else. 15 grand, wow. Because
it's unique. Unique and solves a costly problem.
And here's the real kicker. There's more. Once
you've built that tool for one contractor, what's
stopping you from turning it into a sauce product?
Software as a service. You mean sell it to other
contractors too. Oh, exactly. package it up,
maybe charge a monthly subscription fee and sell
it to hundreds, maybe thousands of similar businesses.
That's how you scale from solving one problem
to building a potentially massive business. Okay,
that's powerful. You're not just trading time
for money anymore. You're building an asset.
That's the potential. It lets you scale your
impact and your income exponentially. All right.
Last one on our list. Skill number seven, AI
design. This feels similar to copywriting. Everyone
needs visuals, right? Logos, websites, social
media graphics, ad images. Businesses constantly
need design work. And traditionally, that's been
expensive and slow. Oh, totally. Getting a professional
logo and brand identity could easily cause thousands.
Getting custom graphics for ads or posts took
time. Back and forth with designers, it was a
bottleneck. AI has just smashed through that
barrier. You can now create really professional
-looking visuals, often in just minutes, even
with zero design background. OK, so what kind
of tools are we talking about here? How does
it work? I've heard of things like Mid Journey.
Mid Journey is a big one, yeah. Tools like Mid
Journey, Stable Diffusion, DLE3, which is actually
built into Chat Sheet BT +, now they can generate
incredible images from just a text description.
Need a photorealistic picture of an astronaut
riding a horse on the moon? Just ask for it.
Need a unique illustration for your blog post
in a watercolor style? Describe it. It's amazing.
You often don't need stock photos or expensive
photo shoots anymore? Mind -blowing. What about
more standard marketing stuff, like social media
posts? For that, you've got tools like Canva,
which many people already use. But Canva now
has this integrated AI suite called Magic Studio.
It can help you instantly generate thumbnails,
resize designs for different platforms, create
social media posts from a simple prompt, even
whip up short promotional videos. It speeds up
the workflow massively. And for more complex
design like app interfaces or presentations.
Yeah, there are tools there too. UEZR is one
you can literally sketch an app interface on
paper. take a photo, and it turns it into a clickable
digital mockup. Seriously, hand -drawn sketch
-to -app mockup. It's pretty wild. And tools
like Gamma can take a few bullet points about
your topic and generate a complete beautifully
designed, multi -slide presentation in seconds.
Saves hours of fiddling with layouts and colors.
This is, it's democratizing design, isn't it?
That's a perfect way to put it. Yeah. It really
is. Mastering these tools means you can offer
design services that are way faster, way cheaper,
and sometimes even more creative than traditional
approaches. Or, you know, you could just handle
all the design for your own business yourself,
saving a ton of money and bringing your vision
to life directly. Incredible. So you're putting
professional level visual creation into everyone's
hands. Pretty much. Okay, let's just step back
for a second and think about these seven skills
together. Tromped engineering, automation, AI
development, data analysis, copywriting, AI -assisted
software development, and AI design. Not that
long ago, maybe 10 years. These were essentially
seven different jobs, seven different specialists
you'd need to hire. Right. A developer, a designer,
a writer, a data person, an ops person. Yet each
requiring years of training, often demanding
high salaries or expensive freelance fees. To
launch a simple business idea, you might have
easily been looking at, what, $200 ,000 in first
-year salaries? Or maybe $50 ,000 just in initial
freelance costs to get the basics built. Easily.
Probably more. And here's the big shift, the
real aha moment from all this. Today, one person.
One single person armed with the right AI skills
can realistically perform all of those roles
effectively. Maybe not at the absolute highest
level in every single one, but certainly well
enough to build, launch, and grow a successful
business. One person doing the work of seven
specialists. It's unprecedented. the barrier
between having a great idea and actually making
it real. It has never, ever been lower than it
is right now. You don't need a huge chunk of
savings anymore. You don't necessarily need angel
investors before you even make your first sale.
You don't need to build a big team from day one.
The tools are here. But there's a but, isn't
there? This won't last forever, this window of
opportunity. It feels like it's closing, slowly
maybe, but closing. I think that's exactly right.
Right now, most businesses, most people, are
still just trying to figure this stuff out. They're
playing catch up. They're still thinking in the
old ways. The people, like you listening now,
who decide to really learn and master these skills
today, while everyone else is still confused,
you gain this massive, almost unfair, competitive
advantage. You get ahead while the getting is
good, basically. Essentially, yes. And look,
you don't have to become a world -class expert
in all seven skills tomorrow. That's overwhelming.
even just getting really good at one or two of
these, especially if you combine it smartly with
a niche or a specific business model, that alone
can take you incredibly far. Focus is key. So
the message is the tools are ready. The opportunities
are literally everywhere. It just comes down
to are you going to grab them? Are you going
to figure this out before everyone else does?
Because these skills, they're not just tech toys.
They're about solving real problems, creating
real value for businesses and customers. And
when you can consistently do that. When you can
create that value, the money just naturally follows.
It really does.