Jack-of-All-Trades Marketer… Thanks to ChatGPT
A couple months ago I launched a new website (insert smooth and subtle plug for SteveLerch.com here). A new site to focus exclusively on my hopefully burgeoning keynote speaking career.
If I could pick a word to describe my Squarespace skills, I’d pick the word “Meh.” I’m fine. I’m ok. I’m not winning any awards, but I know how to stumble my way through most of what I need to accomplish.
EXCEPT, when it comes to anything on the backend. Anything that requires the use of third party tools or custom code. Which unfortunately is what you need when you want to track form submissions on your fancy new speaker website. (Google Tag Manager has entered the chat).
I worked at Google for a decade. I never once logged into Google Tag Manager. So when I logged in the other day to try to setup tags, triggers, and variables for SteveLerch.com (shameless plug #2), I was very intimidated. No clue where to begin. In the olden days (like 2022), I probably would have gone through some GTM trainings/tutorials, maybe watched a couple YouTube videos. But in 2025, thanks to artificial intelligence, the world has become easier for all of us.
And yes, I know what you're thinking: "Another AI blog? Seriously?" Trust me, I get it. But there’s a reason everyone is talking about this stuff. Personally, I’ve been on the AI speaking circuit for the last year and a half, hitting everything from HR conferences to bowling alley conventions (yes, really). I've preached the AI gospel to rental industry folks and even the brilliant minds at NOAA.
While I continue to use AI to write content, create graphics, brainstorm ideas, plan vacations, and diagnose medical conditions, I believe it’s most valuable application is in showing me how to do something that I don’t know how to do.
So in the name of setting up GTM for SteveLerch.com, I logged into ChatGPT. Instead of looking up a generic guide to using Google Tag Manager, I have AI build me a custom step-by-step guide for exactly the thing I need. Not some premade tutorial that is “sort of related” to my needs. A custom guide made just for me.
I can tell AI exactly what I’m trying to accomplish. That I’ve never used GTM before and know ‘zilch’ about code. That my website is built in Squarespace Version 7.1. I can upload screenshots of the forms on SteveLerch.com and simply say “I want to track anytime someone clicks that ‘SUBMIT’ button.”
And poof, 10 seconds later, I’ve got my guide.
Ironically, where AI really impresses me, is when it gets things wrong. Walking through this tutorial, there were a couple spots where the instructions didn’t quite match what I was seeing in the GTM or Squarespace interface. A pretty frustrating occurrence when working with a traditional, static user guide. With AI, I just upload a screenshot and ask for an explanation.
There were times during the conversation (yes, I think of it as a conversation), where ChatGPT asked me to look at the code of my website. I know exactly 0 about code. It was asking me to look for specific phrases and labels around the website forms. Well I didn’t want to do that, because I immediately got confused and overwhelmed. So I copied and pasted all this gibberish into ChatGPT and I said “hey, why don’t you look for the phrases and labels instead.”
The process is so interactive, so customized, so well organized into steps, sub steps, and checkboxes.
I’d have been surprised at how well this all worked, had I not also used ChatGPT a few weeks ago when I was building X (Twitter) ad campaigns for the first time in several years and wanted a walkthrough of the options and the steps that specifically emphasized the changes in the platform since 2023. I knew that would work, because when I was building my Squarespace website (cough- SteveLerch.com -cough), I had Gemini build me a tutorial for using Squarespace Version 7.1, specifically for someone building a keynote speaking website, and again, specifically being able to talk through the evolution of Squarespace since I built my last website a few years ago.
I don’t know how many jobs AI is going to replace. I don’t know how many people and how many companies and how many industries it might put out of business one day. And I don’t know if that day is going to be in 2035 or this August. But to me, it feels like all those macro-economic trends are what they are. They’re inevitable. I can only control what I can control. And what I can control is being a better marketer, capable of doing more things, using more platforms, mastering more tools, and doing all of the above better and faster than I could do them before. And all of that is possible, and it’s possible today, by using AI.