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Chat GPT just changed business forever. And now it's easier than ever to get ahead of 99% of entrepreneurs with AI because most people are still using outdated prompts. I've spent the last five years inside the AI trenches, launching companies, building internal tools, mastering prompts, and I can tell you the top 1% business owners use AI in a completely different way. So I'm going to show you the six ChatGPT hacks that you can use to blow up your business, even if you're just starting off. So let's get into it. Welcome to the Martel Method. I went from rehab at 17 to building a hundred million dollar empire and being a Wall Street Journal best selling author. In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life and business you don't grow to hate. And make sure you don't miss anything by subscribing to my newsletter@martelmethod.com Number one upgrade to ChatGPT Plus. Stop being cheapy cheapy pants. Stop it. Spend the money, get on Chat GPT upgrade to plus and it's like a few dollars a month. It's worth it. One seat will cost you less than a lunch meeting with your team. If your goal is to buy back your time, there's no easier way. It is going to have better features, it's going to be faster, it's going to be integrated, and you'll need the advanced features for the rest of this video. So don't sleep on this. Just go pro. Now here's the deal. If your GPT doesn't respond in a way that sounds like it knows who you are, it's because you haven't properly responded. Introduce yourself to it. 2. Build your role Master prompt To blow up your business using ChatGPT, you have to create what's called a master prompt for every role in your business. Meaning as the CEO, you want to document everything about who you are. The size of your team, your revenue, your projects, your customer type, your products, everything so that you can give it to Chad GPT before you ask it anything. So the responses are 100% customized to to you. Here's how we create this Number one. Tell GPT to interview you to build a master prompt. It knows what that is. So you literally say interview me to create a master prompt. As the CEO of my company, it'll spit back all the questions. And then what I like to do is I like to use a voice mode and I'll just start answering these questions. It'll transcribe it and then it'll create the master prompt for you. The last step is you take the answer to your master prompt and you create it into a canvas which allows you to edit straight within the app, which touch on that later. But once it's done, you save that output as a PDF on your computer. And the coolest part is you can use that for any AI model based on one master prompt. ChatGPT can now draft playbooks and SOPs on your behalf, analyze financial information and suggest levers that you can pull to improve the situation, stress test some new product ideas or pricing decisions, propose next hire score candidates, generate strategies based on the memos that are aligned with your goals. It'll basically know everything it needs as a baseline starting point to give you very actionable and personalized answers. In business, to win, it comes down to sequencing. Sequencing equals success. If the answers aren't aligned with who you are, then it can't properly sequence. Now that you got GPT knowing who you are, it's time to direct it. Thanks for listening to the Martel method. Before we get back to the episode, if you're like a real AI founder and you have a product and customers who are paying you and you want to scale fast, you here's the deal. I want to work with you at Martell Ventures. You don't need another investor. What you need is a partner with distribution, proven Playbooks, most importantly connections. We'll focus on adding customers instead of you wasting all your time fundraising. So if you want to work with me, just go to danmartel.com ventures number three create system prompts this is one of my favorite nerdy things to do. Why I'm a programmer. If you want to blow up your business using ChatGPT, you got to create systems system prompts for your departments. This is the future of intellectual property. People are going to pay a premium to buy a company not because of like the revenue but also the internal prompts that they've created to automate the work. These are not normal chats. These are very detailed, very structured instructions telling the AI exactly what we want it to do. The right system prompts can be so powerful. Today you see apps being built off of AI engines just through English. How on the back end those app builders use these system prompts to guide the AI to create things. I mean don't get distracted. But if you want something fun to do, just search on GitHub the AI app builder repositories like make.com lovable etc. And you will see the actual code that they use to run those apps to generate the outputs, which essentially is building apps. It's not magic, it's a system. So here's how you can craft prompts for your business yourself. And it's really easy. First we have to describe your desired output. And the key is, is to add the constraints and what you're actually asking for. So if you're saying, hey, create me some videos, here's the tone, here's the structure, here's what I want it to talk about, then we build the output into a canvas so that I can refine it. It's like a Google Doc, but it's actually living inside of ChatGPT. That's where I polished the output to make it really sound or look or feel like something I'm proud of. Then you ask GPT to write a detailed system prompt that would have reliably generated that exact output. Hit Enter, watch it give you the language, which is essentially a prompt that if you copied and pasted into a new chat window, it would have gave you that specific output. And then just test it, have GPT run it in a new window and see if the output is consistent. It'll blow your mind. But just look at how it guides the AI, AI to format it, the structure, how it uses the act as a role structure. These things are things I'm going to talk about in a second. But it's the instruction language of the AI that allows you to guide it, to actually make it do exactly what you want it to do. Then you just save that system prompt as a PDF just like you did in Master prompt, so you can use it anytime you want. It acts like a stencil. You just keep using it anytime you want it and it does the thing. Now I want to give you a pro tip for, for prompting because what most people don't realize, there's like seven keywords that if you use it'll change the output of chat GPT to execute exactly as you want it. First one is act as role. So you set the expertise or the voice. For example, you can say, act as a world class copywriter. Next there's do a deep research. Just hit forward slash and type deep research. This tells the AI to do a deep search, aggregate all the information, verify, cross reference and synthesize with any citations what it's found. Next, there's first principles. When you tell it to use first principles to go do research, it decomposes everything into the fundamentals and actually teaches it how to break the steps apart. And then rebuilds the answer based on truths. The next one is Devil's advocate. This is my favorite because I think GPT for the most part is way too nice. But you can actually tell it to stress test your assumptions, lists, risks about things, failure modes and give you a counter argument by telling it to act like a devil's advocate. Next is constraints first. Most people don't set the constraints in regards to time, budgets, timelines, the tools, but if every reply is based on anything that's possible, but I don't tell it to give it the constraints first, then it's not going to be specific to my situation. The next one is format as this is one I use almost 100% of time where I tell it to format the return using a strict structure. I'm a big fan of YAML JSON if I'm doing code stuff PDF we just did. You can even tell it to put it in a table or a numbered bullet list. But we when we specify the format it allows us to take the information and use it in other tools or just be able to copy and paste it into an SMS or reply to somebody a lot easier. Finally, verify and cite Write these in your prompt so you can confirm that everything they're telling you is a fact against a source that can be verified and attaches an inline reference. If you use these instructions in your GPT prompts, you'll get way better results. Now that you've got a system for outputs, let's make your context permanent before we get back to the episode. If you want to jumpstart your week with my top stories and tactics, be sure to subscribe to the Martel Method newsletter. It's where you'll elevate your mindset, fitness and business in less than five minutes a week. Find it@martell method.com Number 4 Run your company as Projects Projects Projects Projects. Do you have any projects going on right now? Cool. Are you using the project folders? No. You should see to really blow up your business with ChatGPT. Use projects to save the context around what you're working on for each department. I use it for everything. I use it for investment decisions. I use it for research. I use it for projects. I put all the information in there. The media, the sales information, the reporting. I even export email threads as a PDF document and throw that in there so that it has everything I need to be able to answer questions on my behalf. For example, I get updates from CEOs that I've invested in their company and oftentimes they're asking me to look at the information. So I put all of that context in a project folder. Then I can prompt it and say, act as an investor. Let me know all the questions I should be asking this CEO to protect my investment and also add value to their world. And it'll analyze everything and I'll say on page 67, the gross margins went down after you launched this new ad campaign. That's amazing. And I just tell it to write it in the tone of Dan Martell because it knows who I am and it writes the email reply, saving me literally hours. So here's how you can set up project folders for yourself. First off, on the left side of your ChatGPT, it literally says projects. Click new projects and give it a name. So for example, new email campaign and you'll have all of the creative, your brand guidelines, your style guides, everything. Your tonality, your market research, your icps. You can upload all those marketing documents and then you could say, based on this new campaign, write the emails that I'm going to want to put together to get your list to do whatever. Then it's going to respond with the specific emails using all the information that it had in that document. And again, if you have a master prompt for your role, if you're the head of marketing, then upload that as well because it's going to use that context. The output. Email campaigns, ads, proposals are only going to be as good as the information. The context it has about your specific situation and projects lets you isolate it. The best part, if it's an ongoing project, every chat you've had for different pieces that you want it to build will use that information to actually perfect the response on future chats within that project. The key concept here is compounding context. The more context that compounds, the better the response are going to be. Now, projects are great, but what if you want to update your whole company's context before we get back to this episode? If you prefer to watch your content, then go find me on YouTube. I have this episode on YouTube. I'm Dan Martell on YouTube. Just subscribe to the channel. Turn on the notification bell because then you'll get notified in real time. It'll tell YouTube to tell you got a new episode so you'll never miss anything. Now let's get back to the episode number five. Update your custom instructions. To really blow up your business with ChatGPT, update your company's custom instructions. Think of your ChatGPT account like your company's brain. And now you can set the Specific instructions for it to know and use every time so that when it replies, it uses that. To do this, you want to go under your profile, click Settings and then go under Personalization and you'll see a little window say custom instructions. This is where you want to talk about the behavior, how it should respond, the style, how you like answers. If you like them short and concise, that's mine. The tone and preferences Always respond to short, concise, bulleted points. Always format in ascii, always format in a structure I can copy and paste. You can even say respond in 8th grade language at all times to be direct and avoid fluff. You can tell it whatever you want it to do forever. You set that at the account level, your business level, so that it answers that way every time. That'll save your progress. Now we have to unblock the rest of your team with custom creations number six building custom GPTs. This is where it gets fun. Don't just prompt, productize your prompts. Remember those system prompts we talked about earlier? This is actually how we turn it into a tool that not only you use to do your work, you can give to other people on your team so they can do it for you. These custom GPTs literally will save you hours. You set them up, it takes minutes, and then you never have to do this ever again. It is the most powerful way to use ChatGPT. The way my day looks is I'm always trying to create new system prompts to solve major problems inside my companies, like wherever the bottlenecks are, and then I lock that lesson into a custom GPT. So for example, I love to read books. I love to learn from other people. Some people have never written books on the topics I want to learn from them. So what I did one day is I spent two hours creating a very advanced system prompt that I could give it a name of a person and a topic and it would write a 2000 word book outline. Sarah Blakely from Spanx on parenting. Here's a whole book outline. My wife Renee Warren on being unapologetic. Here's a whole book outline. Gary Vaynerchuk on scaling a media company book outline. Mr. Beast on building a media department book outline. It's wild. So what happened is I showed some friends the output and they were like, oh, I want to use that, I want to use that. And I was like, oh, giving you the system prompt might be a little too hard. So I just took that prompt, put it into a custom GPT, grabbed the link and I shared that that is a beautiful use of a custom GPT. So here's how you can set up a custom GPT. And it's easy because you already have all the ingredients. Number one, go to chat GPT. Click GPTs and in the top right corner you'll see Create. So click that. Little fun fact, you can't do it on the mobile app. So what I do on my mobile phone is I go to a browser and then you just kind of scroll over in the Browse browser on ChatGPT and you can click Create from there. You just can't do it from within the app today. Second thing is you want to input the instructions. This is the system prompt you created earlier. You can put that in there. Plus, if you want, you can upload the master prompt with all the context by clicking Upload files under the Knowledge section. Then once you've created it, you get a link and you can set it to anyone or just the people that have the link. And then you can share with anyone to try it and use it. I do sit here and preview those chats just to make sure that it's doing what I think it's doing. But once it's really locked and loaded, I'll go and pilot it with a smaller group of people to make sure it works for them. Then I'll roll it out to the rest of the company using Slack. Before we get back to the episode, if you're enjoying it so far, could you go ahead and do me a huge favor and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify reviews Help us get up in the rankings, which gives us credibility to reach out to bigger and bigger guests. We can bring them to you. It would mean so much. Let's get back to the episode. The more these custom GPT tools you build within your company, the faster you can grow. The less worry of are people doing the right thing. You're able to let go of areas of your business because you've coded the behavior inside the system prompt so you don't have to stress out. As long as they're using the output and they're not freestyling, they can't mess it up. If you follow these ChatGPT hacks, your business is guaranteed to grow. Because ChatGPT isn't just like a chatbot, it's essentially your creative operating system. You use it as like mission control to like, figure out like, where am I stuck? And how do I overcome those problems? I call it becoming the director. See in the future, when all the problems that you need to solve are no longer problems because you can get the answer from GPT, then the real skill to develop is figuring out what problems to work on. And to solve those you have to be a director, not a doer. Here's the one thing I need you to do today. Go create your master prompt. My vision is for you to have 92% of all your work done by AI so that you can spend the 8% on your craft, your genius cultivating, curating, editing its output. You don't have to be involved in the creation from scratch. And remember, your system prompts are essentially your new intellectual property. The more you invest in them, the more you invest in your team to learn AI. And they create these. When somebody goes to buy your business, they're going to value at a higher multiple because you have them. So start today. Thanks for listening to Martel Method. If you like this episode, could you do me a huge favor and go leave a review? This helps us get the podcast more ears and helps more people get unstuck, reclaim their freedom and build their empire.

Podcast Summary: The Martell Method w/ Dan Martell

Episode: These 6 ChatGPT Hacks Will Make You So Much Money It Feels Illegal
Host: Dan Martell
Date: January 28, 2026

Overview

In this high-impact episode, Dan Martell shares the top six ChatGPT hacks that can transform your business—whether you’re just starting out or scaling fast. Drawing from his experience launching companies and building custom AI tools, Dan reveals advanced strategies that position business owners in the top 1% of AI users. He covers everything from upgrading to ChatGPT Plus to building high-leverage, repeatable systems using master prompts and custom GPTs, all while emphasizing the importance of personalization, context, and becoming a “director” of your business.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Upgrade to ChatGPT Plus (01:22)

Main Point:
Investing the small monthly fee in ChatGPT Plus is a non-negotiable for serious business owners. The advanced features and increased speed are essential for the other hacks.
Quote:

"Stop being cheapy cheapy pants. ... One seat will cost you less than a lunch meeting with your team. If your goal is to buy back your time, there's no easier way." (01:25)
Why:
Plus unlocks features needed for advanced workflows and response precision.

2. Build Your Role Master Prompt (02:27)

Main Point:
Feed ChatGPT detailed information about your role, business, team, products, and goals so every response is fully personalized.
How:
- Ask ChatGPT to interview you for a master prompt.
- Use voice mode for ease; transcribe answers.
- Save the output as a PDF and reuse it as a “canvas”.
Quote:

"ChatGPT can now draft playbooks and SOPs, analyze financials, stress test ideas, generate strategies... It’ll basically know everything it needs as a baseline starting point to give you very actionable and personalized answers." (04:05)
Insight:
Properly sequenced answers depend on rich context—“sequencing equals success”.

3. Create System Prompts (09:25)

Main Point:
Develop detailed, structured prompts ("system prompts") for each department or recurring process. This becomes new intellectual property for your company.
How:
- Describe your desired output and constraints (tone, structure, timeline, etc.).
- Refine the output in a “canvas” within ChatGPT.
- Ask GPT to write a detailed prompt that, if reused, replicates the output.
- Save your system prompts as PDFs.
Pro Tip:
Use these “power keywords” for advanced prompting:
- Act as [role]: “Act as a world-class copywriter.”
- /deep research: Instructs GPT to aggregate & verify data with citations.
- First principles: Guides GPT to break tasks down to fundamentals.
- Devil’s advocate: Stress tests assumptions & identifies risks.
- Constraints first: For specificity (time, budget, tools).
- Format as [structure]: E.g., YAML, table, numbered list.
- Verify and cite: Requests sources and references.
Quote:

"The right system prompts can be so powerful… This is the future of intellectual property." (10:50)

4. Use Projects to Store Context (19:12)

Main Point:
Organize your work in ChatGPT “projects”, letting you save all relevant documents, media, and threads for each initiative.
How:
- Create a new project for any business initiative.
- Upload all relevant info—brand guides, market research, email threads.
- Instruct ChatGPT to act on all this context (e.g., analyze sales data as an investor).
Key Concept:
Compounding Context: The more data you feed per project, the smarter and more relevant GPT’s responses become, especially for ongoing work.
Quote:

"The key concept here is compounding context. The more context that compounds, the better the response are going to be." (22:19)
Example:
Asking ChatGPT to analyze investment reports and draft investor emails in Dan’s voice.

5. Update Your Custom Instructions (24:18)

Main Point:
Set permanent behavior and style instructions for your ChatGPT account so replies consistently match your preferences and business needs.
How:
- Under Settings > Personalization > Custom Instructions, define how you want answers (e.g., concise bullet points, specific language level, always format as ASCII, etc.).
Quote:

"Think of your ChatGPT account like your company's brain. ... You can even say, 'respond in 8th grade language at all times to be direct and avoid fluff.'" (25:00)

6. Build Custom GPTs (26:48)

Main Point:
Productize your best system prompts for repeated use and to empower your team. Custom GPTs save hours and ensure consistency.
How:
- Go to ChatGPT > GPTs > Create (browser only, not app).
- Input your system prompt (and master prompt if needed).
- Upload files for added context.
- Share the custom GPT via link with your team or clients.
Quote:

"These custom GPTs literally will save you hours. You set them up, it takes minutes, and then you never have to do this ever again." (27:12)
Example:
Dan built a custom GPT that could generate a full 2000-word book outline in the style of any expert—then shared the tool with friends and team for reuse.

Closing Insights

Director vs. Doer Mindset:
As AI handles more creation, your value as an entrepreneur shifts to deciding what to work on.

"In the future ... all the problems that you need to solve are no longer problems because you can get the answer from GPT, then the real skill to develop is figuring out what problems to work on. And to solve those you have to be a director, not a doer." (31:46)
Leverage and Freedom:
Aim to automate 92% of your work via AI and focus your energy on the highest-value 8%.

"My vision is for you to have 92% of all your work done by AI so that you can spend the 8% on your craft, your genius…” (32:26)
Intellectual Property of the Future:
Custom system prompts and GPTs become key business assets, raising your company's valuation and scalability.

Notable Quotes

"Sequencing equals success." (05:41)
"It's not magic, it's a system." (11:42)
"The more these custom GPT tools you build within your company, the faster you can grow." (29:58)
"As long as they're using the output and they're not freestyling, they can't mess it up." (30:22)

Episode Navigation

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|-------------------------------------------------------| | 01:22 | Upgrade to ChatGPT Plus | | 02:27 | Build Your Role Master Prompt | | 09:25 | Create System Prompts & Power Keywords | | 19:12 | Use Projects for Compounding Context | | 24:18 | Update Your Custom Instructions | | 26:48 | Build Custom GPTs for Leverage | | 31:46 | Director vs Doer Mindset / Closing Insights |

This episode is jam-packed with hands-on tactics and mindset shifts. Dan urges listeners not only to use but productize ChatGPT for maximum leverage, and to view these hacks as foundational assets for explosive business growth.