📹 Stop explaining. Start recording.

🎥 You explained it once. Then again. And again—across Slack, email, Zoom, and a sigh-heavy screen recording. Your new VA is adept, but still asked, “How do I do this again?” By the fourth reply, you started questioning your life choices.

This week, we’re climbing toward sanity with tools that teach, train, and explain—without you narrating the same directions repeatedly. Whether documenting your workflow, demoing your genius, or dropping client deliverables, tap these tools, hit record once...and move on. (3-minute read)

🔦 Week’s highlights:

• Tool spotlight: Guidde builds step-by-step walkthroughs. Loom turns recordings into client-ready content.

• Sherpa’s shortcuts: Learn client-ready how-tos, and a sneaky trick to turn any explainer video into a searchable doc.

• The Ridgeline news: Turns out everyone’s actually addicted to ChatGPT. (Check for withdrawals).

• 😝Tools gone wild: Newspapers ran an AI-generated summer book list—that didn’t actually exist.

AI tool spotlight:

Tool Sherpa explores the flood of new AI apps and carefully selects only proven tools.

🔍 Guidde: Create walkthroughs without repeating yourself

Why it matters:
You show a client how to do something. Then show it again. Then wonder if this is your new full-time job. Guidde records your screen, grabs each click, and turns it into a scrollable guide with screenshots, captions, and AI voiceover—so you can explain it once and move on with your day.

Best use case:
Walk through a task like “How I structure content briefs for agencies.” Let Guidde auto-capture your steps, choose a voice, add a voiceover, blur the weird stuff, and share the link. Your client gets a slick how-to. You get your inbox back.

Who should use this:

• Freelancers training, onboarding clients or instructing virtual assistants

• Solopreneurs documenting repeatable workflows

• Freelance writers who hand off content (then walk clients through how-tos)

Pros:
Create walkthroughs in under 3 minutes and save 10 minutes-ish every time someone uses your guide instead of emailing, “Where’s the button again?” Clients think you custom-made a slick training hub just for them (you didn’t).

Cons:
Not ideal for one-click tasks. Extension version only works with Chrome & Edge browsers. (App version available).

Pricing:
Free plan available (includes 25 monthly guides). Paid plans start at $23/month.
👉 Try Guidde for free

🔍 Loom: Say it once, send the link (and skip the call)

Why it matters:
Loom isn’t like Guidde. This isn’t for documenting every click. It’s to create videos for talking your clients or team through an idea, giving feedback, explaining choices, or showing visual context. Loom captures your screen and voice in one take, trims the awkward silences, and adds polish so you sound clear, not rehearsed.

Best use case:
Pitching to a client (“Here’s how I structured your website”), walking through creative work, or summarizing a project without typing it out. Loom helps you bring tone and nuance—no Zoom invite required.

Who should use this:

• Freelancers who need to explain strategy, edits, or deliverables

• Creators sharing demos, tutorials, or behind-the-scenes work

• Anyone tired of typing long emails no one reads

Pros:
Most videos take under 2 minutes (unless you talk longer), and save even more time on back-and-forth. Loom’s AI trims filler words and adds a title and CTA—so you can sound sharp with zero editing. Great for sending personal updates or client recaps they actually watch.

Cons:
Not for step-by-step guides (use Guidde for that). .

🎥 Bonus for creators:
Use the iPhone app to film real-world demos (like craft tutorials or product shots). Or use the app on your laptop by angling the webcam to capture your workspace.

Pricing:
Free plan includes up to 25 videos. Paid plans start at $15/month.
👉 See Loom in action

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Sherpa’s shortcuts 🪓

Sherpa-approved hacks to streamline your workflow.

⚡ Hack #1: Make your explainer video scannable

Problem: Clients rewatch your Loom video—or worse, message you—to find one small thing you said.
Solution: Grab the transcript, paste it into Claude.ai, and add a summary right below the Loom link in your email. Now your client can skim, search, and stop asking.

How to:

1. After recording your Loom, click “Transcript” and copy the text.

2. Paste it into Claude.ai and prompt: “Summarize this video as clear bullet points my client can use.”

3. Copy the summary into the same email where you share the Loom link.

💡 Sherpa tip: A short video plus a skimmable summary saves everyone time, and makes you look very on top of things.

👉 Try Claude for free, or use ChatGPT, Gemini, or any AI tool you like.

⚡ Hack #2: Let AI write the instructions you’ve been avoiding

Problem: You keep meaning to write down how you do that thing, you know — send the newsletter, post the reel, complete other detailed processes. Unfortunately, you start and your brain quietly leaves the building.
Solution: Let AI write it. One good prompt turns your repeatable task into a ready-to-send checklist.

How to:

1. Open ChatGPT or Claude and type:
   “Write a professional list of steps I can send to my VA for how I [insert task].”
   Example: “upload my Beehiiv newsletter draft with images and formatting.”

2. Glance at the output. Make sure it didn’t hallucinate a kangaroo.

3. Save it. Use it. Copy-paste it next time someone asks how to help.

💡 Sherpa tip: Even use this to create client instructions: Instead of penning another long email, you just hit paste and look incredibly prepared.

👉 Try it with Claude or ChatGPT

The Ridgeline 🏔️

AI news for solopreneurs, small teams and the side-hustle inclined.

AI’s stacking your calendar, booking your clients, and maybe even pitching your business. Let’s trek:

Everyone’s addicted to ChatGPT: A leaked OpenAI memo showed just how deeply we’ve all merged with ChatGPT. TLDR: you're not alone. 🔗Peep the leak

Fiverr freelancers go agent-mode: Demand for AI-trained freelancers jumped 625%. Translation: prompt engineering is now a line item—and yes, it pays. 🔗 Check out the surge

Squarespace reads your mind: Its new AI tool builds websites from ideas alone. Could finally stop clients from saying “make it pop” with no direction. 🔗Watch the demo

Turn a prompt into a product: Perplexity Labs AI wants you to build your next business in one prompt. Dream it, plan it—then pitch it before lunch. 🔗 Tour the new lab

Search becomes your VA: Google’s new “Googling mode” acts like a research assistant who doesn’t eat snacks or ghost you on deadlines. 🔗 Test the new vibe

Entrepreneurs are optional now: One founder ran their entire startup with agents. No team, no pitch deck, no burnout spiral. Tempting, right? 🔗 See the experiment

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Tools gone wild! 😜

Let’s end with a laugh — when AI tools take a detour off the happy path.

📚 AI’s summer reading list was pure fiction. Literally.

Last month, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Chicago Sun-Times published a summer book roundup packed with can’t-miss titles like Tidewater Dreams by Isabel Allende, and The Last Algorithm by Andy Weir. Sounds great, except none of the books exist.

A freelance writer drafted the list using an AI and skipped the fact-check. Both papers yanked the feature, issued apologies, and launched internal reviews (while LinkedIn lit up with “AI is terrible!” hot takes).

📌 Lesson learned:
AI can lighten the load. But transforming it into a shortcut that still honors the craft requires freelancers to apply time, care, attention—and serious fact checking.

🧭 What’s Next?

You’ve explained it once, captured it in a link, and maybe even made it skimmable. That’s not just efficiency, it’s wisdom in action.

Climbing this ‘freelancers learning AI mountain’ too? You’re in good company.
Know a freelancer or creator who’d love Tool Sherpa AI? 👉 Send them this link and help them find a smarter, saner path up. Until next time, rest those knees, and let the tools carry some weight.

— Your Sherpa Team