I asked y’all to make the comments on this post look like my ChatGPT history, and y’all understood the assignment. The answers were all over the place from accurate to humorous. Here are the 5 runners-up first, each of whom won a Fundamentals Bundle for themselves or someone they love, since many of these folks already had a Fundamentals membership:

“What is the closest distance to walk by a pool without any chances of falling in?” – Kelley Pribil – This calls back to this 2023 incident caught on my home security cameras. I laughed out loud when I read this because I still think about this incident every time I walk around that area of the pool. “Gotta be careful, don’t wanna take a swim right now…”

“Write a short article about a Contest that is called ‘Make the Comments Look Like My ChatGPT History'” – Cavaliery – Back in 2023, I bought a WordPress plugin that would write articles for you, plus content review, tweaking, etc. I experimented with it for a while, bought a separate domain with no names on it, had it author a bunch of Azure posts automatically, and watched the web page analytics to see if it would catch on. I ended up shutting it down – it was too early for the tools to write good stuff – but these days I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a lot more successful.

“Can I route the OBDII car performance metrics to the local SQL Server instance?” – Andrew Buis – Around 2003, I built a car computer for my gooorgeous Volvo C70. It was long before automotive cellular connections were an affordable thing, so I had it watching for open WiFi networks, and when it found one, it would automatically download my mail and read it to me, among other things. This question is exactly the kind of thing 2003 Brent would have asked ChatGPT.

“Write a gentle rejection email to someone who submitted a pull request to First Responder Kit that technically works but that I will never, ever merge.” – Rebecca – This is a great idea and I will actually do it, hahaha.

“What problem are you trying to solve” – Zweitze – There were several takes on this joke, but I like Zweitze’s best because it turns things around on ChatGPT instead of my readers. I can just imagine looking at some garbage coming out of ChatGPT, getting exasperated, and yelling, “Yo, what problem are you trying to solve with this?!?” (I have to confess that I’ve yelled some pretty strong stuff at GIthub Copilot during code reviews when it gets distracted.)

And the winners…

Who each pick up a Fundamentals & Mastering Bundle for themselves or to re-gift to a passing stranger:

“1. What are the top 10 tropical vacation hotspots? 2. What gin and tonic drinks are rated in the top 5 best? 3. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?” – Jersey – I have actually prompted ChatGPT with the contents of my bar and fridge, told it that I prefer very easy-to-mix drinks, and that’s how I started drinking Boulevardiers. Really rough hangovers though, so I quit that.

“Explain the ending of “Lost” like I am 5 years old. Is the plural of “index” “indexes” or “indices”? Also, how do I spell “mantenance”?” – Scott – I adooooored Lost, and I never thought about the plural of index, and maintenance is one of those words that took me years to turn into muscle memory.

I’m going to separate this last one by Alex into its own section because it’s long:

A long one by Alex

Please give specific, actionable advice for the following business problem. Do not give advice that recommends changing my brand, creating vast amounts of new content, or undermining my client’s integrity. Provide a complete answer in a friendly, business minded tone.

I’m looking for some advice on how to bring in more clients for my SQL Server consulting and training business.

I have a couple of avenues I can use to reach an audience:
1. I run a community blog that posts most working days, with ~150,000 unique weekly visitors. Engagement is driven by my email newsletter, which is sent out after each post, has an open rate of 30%, and contains a copy of the most recent post.
2. I run a weekly YouTube Q/A roundup that gets around ~2K views over the first week. Each video covers between 8-15 questions from my community submitted via a poll.
3. I build and maintain a set of free maintenance SQL Server scripts that are widely used in and outside of my community.
4. I run a query plan tuning website that sees ~75k unique weekly visitors.
5. I host in-person training sessions at a variety of database conferences.

I have recently taken some time off for the first couple months of the year, and am coming back to a somewhat tougher market, given the state of the economy and recent developments in AI.

I run a monthly job opportunities post for my community to post jobs in their companies. My latest monthly job post has dropped down to 1 post, from 7 the previous month, and was at a steady ~8-12 through most of last year. My recent posts and moves towards AI have driven the most engagement in my community–I’ve seen widespread engagement around some recent AI capabilities added to my maintenance scripts and my query plan tuning website. Finally, my in-person trainings are doing well, my latest training (optimization based with a K-Pop demon hunters theme) about sql server optimization is close to selling out.

I already have committed resources towards producing new content at this time and I don’t have the bandwidth to work on a lot more right now.

I do have the ability to give away keys for my online training courses, and I’m willing to commit 10 or so to this project.

Provide 3 potential ways to choose from that let me leverage my current audience to bring in more clients to my business. 1 lighthearted and silly, 1 serious, and 1 that you think is most likely to bring ROI. Do not provide anything except the 3 projects.

ChatGPT 5.4’s response

1. “Worst Query of the Month” giveaway campaign
   Run a playful monthly contest across the blog, newsletter, YouTube roundup, and free scripts: people submit their ugliest real-world SQL Server performance problem, and you roast it lovingly, pick a winner, and give that person one of your training course keys. The point is not to create a mountain of new content, but to turn the content engine you already have into a lead magnet for people who have active pain right now. Require submissions to include company, environment size, what they already tried, and whether they want help fixing it internally or with outside consulting. That gives you a natural way to spot companies with budget, urgency, and messy workloads without acting salesy. At the end of each month, add one simple CTA everywhere: “If your team has a query you’re embarrassed to show in public, that’s usually when it’s time to bring in outside help.” This works because it is fun, highly on-brand for you, and directly surfaces warm consulting opportunities from people already admitting they have a problem. Brent says: the only problem with this is that I’d have to read all that hot garbage.
2. Manager-facing internal pitch kit for training and consulting
   Create one practical “send this to your boss” package and promote it repeatedly through your existing channels. Keep it small: one email template, one one-page PDF, and one short landing page section that explains when a company should buy training versus consulting, what business outcomes they should expect, and what kind of teams are the best fit. Your audience already trusts you technically, but many of them are not the buyer. They need help carrying your value proposition upward inside their company. Include language around budget efficiency, faster incident resolution, fewer wasted developer hours, and AI reality checks without hype. Then tie your 10 course keys to this by offering them as a bonus for companies that start a conversation: for example, “Book a call about team training or tuning help this month, and I’ll include a few course seats for your team.” This is serious, low-lift, and respectful of buyer integrity because it helps your champions make an honest internal business case instead of pushing gimmicks. Brent says: that’s genius, and I’m sure ChatGPT would do a good job of writing this kind of thing, too.
3. Free “AI Readiness for SQL Server Performance Tuning” consulting funnel
   This is the one most likely to drive ROI because it aligns with where you are already seeing unusual engagement. Package a tightly scoped offer for teams that are curious about AI but wary of nonsense: a short advisory session or mini-assessment on how to use AI safely in SQL Server performance tuning, code review, plan analysis, and incident response. Promote it through your blog, newsletter, query plan site, and FRK ecosystem as a limited-capacity offer for teams, not individuals. Position it as practical and skeptical: what AI is good at today, where it can waste time, how your tools now support it, and how to evaluate whether their environment is a fit. Use the 10 training keys as incentives for qualified conversations: “For the first 10 companies that book an assessment, I’ll include training access for your team leads.” This gives you a timely reason to talk to companies that may not have budgeted for classic consulting yet, but do have current interest and executive attention around AI. It also creates a clean bridge from community enthusiasm into paid advisory work without requiring you to produce a lot of brand-new material. Brent says: I bet this would work too, but then I’d have to build it, and the content would constantly age out because AI is changing so quickly.

All in all, what a fun exercise! Thanks for joining in with me on that.