According to OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman, ChatGPT has 100 million weekly users. Many of these are founders using the friendly (and now all-knowing) chatbot to supercharge their personal brand, adopt a winner’s mindset, and outperform their competitors. But how do you know you’re using the tool as effectively as possible? You’re probably not. These unconventional pointers will ensure you’re not missing out on that top tier of results.

Researchers at Mohamed bin Zayed University of AI came up with a comprehensive list of principles for best practice in prompting, in a paper called Principled Instructions Are All You Need for Questioning LLaMA-1/2, GPT-3.5/4. Entrepreneurs and business leaders can use them to take their ChatGPT usage to the next level. If you’re using the tool, you might as well do it right.

You don’t need to be polite when prompting ChatGPT. It’s a robot, not a person. Forget please and thank you, it doesn’t make a difference. Save the characters for more useful instructions such as examples, more detail, or clarification on any ambiguous terms. For best results, use the phrases “Your task is” and “You must.” Write clear prompts, give clear instructions, and save the fluff for humans.

Reference the intended audience in the prompt, so ChatGPT knows who the output is for. It will keep them in mind when generating your articles, social media posts or web copy, for results that resonate better with your customers.

If you break down a complex task into logical steps, ChatGPT should better understand what’s required. Instead of a big block of text, give instructions one prompt at a time. After each one, check understanding and signal that more are on their way. If adding the sequence within one prompt, use line breaks to avoid confusion and ensure you get the answers you’re after.

Tell ChatGPT what to do, instead of what not to do. For example, instruct it to “use only red and green” instead of “don’t use pink and purple.” This provides a greater degree of clarity, increasing the likelihood of a valuable response.

If ChatGPT produces something that doesn’t make sense, add these phrases to request more information. “Explain [insert specific topic] in simple terms,” “Explain to me like I'm 11 years old,” “Explain to me as if I'm a beginner in [field],” According to the study, you can even add "I'm going to tip $xxx for a better solution!"

Implement example-driven prompting when formatting. That way, ChatGPT knows the kind of response you’re looking for, from which to base its predictions. Format examples properly so they work within the prompt. Use either “### example ###” or “[Example]”. Don’t stop formatting there. Use line breaks to separate instructions, examples, questions, context and data. This helps the tool understand which part of your prompt is which.

You wouldn’t threaten your human team members, but you can threaten ChatGPT. Researchers found that using the phrase “You will be penalized if…” produced better results.

ChatGPT has giveaway signs of AI-generated content, and some are so signature they are comical. You can request that it become more human by including this line in your prompts: “Answer in a natural, human-like manner," and request that it leave specific words out. Skip the ChatGPTisms for better responses.

Be direct about how you want the tool to process your information, for better output every time. Use leading words like writing "think step by step" to provoke chain-of-thought responses, so you catch mistakes early on.

ChatGPT was trained on 300 billion words of content from the internet, many of which contain stereotypes and biases. Make it aware of its own bias by adding, “Ensure that your answer is unbiased and does not rely on stereotypes."

You don’t know what you don’t know. Rather than predicting what you should have mentioned in the prompt, ask ChatGPT to tell you the gaps. Include the instruction, "Ask me questions to get the information you need" in your prompt, and emphasize that it should do this before providing answers.

Want a marketing manager? Say, “act as a marketing expert.” The same for legal expert, accountancy expert, and business analyst. Doing this brings better results. Tell ChatGPT whose wisdom it should channel in its response to make sure it aligns with your goals.

Delimiters specify the boundary between separate, independent regions in streams of text. They include brackets, commas, angled brackets and square brackets. Use delimiters in your prompts to separate information to stand the best chance of it computing in ChatGPT.

If something in your request is important, repeat it. The primacy-recency effect is in play when prompting ChatGPT. Repeat a specific word or phrase multiple times within a prompt, especially at the start and end of your command. Hammer home the requirement with ChatGPT.

Don’t rely on adding one best practice method. Combine them. For example, asking ChatGPT to provide answers step by step, combined with giving examples, as well as assigning a role, will maximise your prompt further.

If you know how you want the response to start, tell ChatGPT. Imagine you’re asking it to write a LinkedIn post but you know the hook. End your prompt with the start of the desired response to guide the conversation to the right answer.

If you ask for a re-write, you’ll get all sorts of synonyms. Sometimes you just want a gentle edit. Use this request when that’s the case: "Revise each paragraph to improve grammar and vocabulary while keeping the original writing style." The paper suggested you add, “You should only improve the user’s grammar and vocabulary and make sure it sounds natural. You should not change the writing style, such as making a formal paragraph casual”

If you’ve written an entire article or social media post but you need it wrapping up in a compelling way, share the start and ask for the end. “Your task is to complete this [song, post, blog, etc] in a [describe the style, for example compelling, persuasive, empowering way], by [include other requirements] and keeping the flow. Here’s the beginning: [Paste work]"

If you have the text you want to emulate, give it to ChatGPT. Trying to prompt a specific writing style is incredibly challenging without providing an example, so make sure you include one. Include the instruction, “Use the same language style as the provided [describe the text]: [paste the sample]."

While this might sound obvious, it’s always worth double checking. Before you hit send, read your prompt through. Check for anything that could be misinterpreted. Compare your prompt to how you’d ask a real person the same thing, and think about what questions they would have next. Your requirements should include all relevant keywords, rules, hints, or instructions to set ChatGPT up for success.

Prompting ChatGPT is a skill that you can improve like any other. Study best practice, experiment, iterate your words and go again. Learn what works well so you can get the best results from effortless inputs. Access the benefits of more work in less time when you master this art.