🔥Warm Up Cold Pitches with AI-Driven Videos

👩‍🎨You pulled together the proposal. Then spent an hour trying to make it look like someone with taste made it. Five fonts, three “just placeholder” screenshots, and a Canva spiral later, it’s midnight. You hit send—and instantly regret the header.

Design isn’t just for designers. It’s how you prove you’re ready before you ever speak. This week, we’re giving you tools to look the part—pitch decks, brand templates, quick reformatting for socials—all polished in minutes, not hours. No pixel pushing. No design degree. Just a few smart moves that make everything you send feel legit. (3-minute read)

🔦 Week’s Highlights:

• Spotlight: Tome builds warm up cold outreach like you’ve never seen; Canva Pro makes your brand look intentional (even if it isn’t) with brand new AI shortcuts.

• Sherpa’s Shortcuts: Bang out five variations on your posts in seconds + quick content calendaring.

• The Ridgeline: ChatGPT’s (finally) got (more) memory, editors are missing the point, and AI’s changing your coffee habits.

• 😬 Tools Gone Wild: An AI avatar meets a courtroom full of judges who did not sign up for this.

AI tool spotlight:

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

🔍 Tome: Pitch decks that pitch for you

Why It Matters:
Clients don’t want another call. They want the gist, the vibe, and the price—ideally while they’re standing in line for coffee. Tome lets you drop a short video inside a clean, mobile-friendly deck so your pitch speaks for itself. You record once, they watch when they’re ready.

Who Should Use This:

• Freelancers who want to stand out in a sea of same-same proposals

• Consultants who are tired of repeating the same pitch on Zoom

• Creatives who want to add a personal touch—without booking a call

Best Use Case:
Perfect to warm up cold outreach or new project proposals. Add a short intro video to explain your offer, walk through the deck, and skip the whole “Let’s find a time to chat” routine.

Pros:
You can embed a personalized video directly in the deck—no link-hopping. The design auto-adjusts for mobile, and it’s ridiculously easy to use (no PowerPoint spirals).

Cons:
You can’t export to PDF. It lives online, so you’ll need to send a link (but clients don’t seem to mind).

Pricing:
Free plan available. Paid plans start at $10/month 👉 Try Tome for free

🔍 Canva Pro: Tap the features that actually save time

Why It Matters:
You’ve used Canva. Many solopreneurs swear by it. But if you’re still dragging logos in by hand, picking new fonts regularly, or resizing posts one by one—you’re doing it the hard way. Canva Pro quietly unlocks the real time-saving features: branded templates, one-click resize, and instant polish across decks, proposals, and client docs.

Who Should Use This:

• Freelancers bouncing between client brands, color palettes, and endless formats

• Creators who reuse designs often and want them to stay consistent

• Anyone who opens Canva 3+ times a week but still edits everything manually

Best Use Case:
You build one proposal (or post), then hit Magic Resize to instantly create five versions for social media, etc. You apply your Brand Kit to make it match. You finish before your coffee gets cold.

Pros:
Save each client’s fonts, colors, and logos in their own Brand Kit. Apply with one click. Magic Resize turns one design into five—no rebuilding, no guessing dimensions.

Cons:
Free plan doesn’t provide top time-saving features. If you’re editing daily, Pro pays for itself in stress reduction.

Pricing: Free plan available. Pro starts at $15/month (or $120 annually).👉 Try Canva Pro

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Sherpa’s shortcuts 🪓

Sherpa-approved hacks to save time and streamline your workflow in today’s most popular AI apps.

⚡ Hack #1: One Idea, Five Formats—Fast

Problem: You’ve got a great idea, but then… it sits. You can’t think of a way to reframe it for different platforms, so it never gets posted anywhere else.

Solution: Use ChatGPT to quickly turn one idea into five distinct formats—perfect for posting across all your channels, without rewriting each time.

Steps:

1. Take a solid, short paragraph of your idea

2. Prompt ChatGPT: “Reformat this into a tweet, a LinkedIn post, an email intro, a blog hook, and a social media caption.”

3. Pick and post—done in less than 10 minutes.

💡 Sherpa’s Tip: Every great idea should work across multiple formats. This Shortcut makes sure you don’t waste time trying to fit one thought into multiple boxes.

👉 Repurpose smarter

⚡ Hack #2: Instant Content Calendar—No More Scrambling

Problem:
You’ve got ideas but no plan. You end up posting “Happy Monday” at 4 p.m.

Solution:
Use ChatGPT or your favorite AI chatbot to generate a content calendar in minutes. Give it a few details, and it’ll deliver a week’s worth of posts, topics, and CTAs—ready to schedule.

Steps:

1. Tell ChatGPT: “Create a week’s worth of social media posts for a [business type]. Include topic ideas, captions, and CTAs.”

2. Copy it into your calendar tool and hit ‘schedule.’

💡 Sherpa’s Tip:
No more last-minute posts. With this, you’re ahead of the game—no panic required.

👉 Get your content plan

The Ridgeline 🏔️

News on how AI is rewriting the rules for solopreneurs and small teams.

ChatGPT’s turning into your AI sidekick, Canva’s in full glam mode, and science just came for your coffee. Let’s trek:

🧠 ChatGPT Just Became Your VA: It now remembers your tone, tasks, and preferences—yes, even that weird way you say “circle back.” Freelancers, you just hired a free assistant. 🔗Meet your updated sidekick.

📝 Editors Still Don’t Get It: Most content bosses are still treating AI like a passing fad. Freelancers? Quietly automating the hell out of everything. 🔗Here’s what they’re missing.

☕ AI Hates Your Coffee: Freelancers, your pour-over isn’t artisanal—it’s tragic. Scientists used AI to engineer the perfect brew. Time to level up your home barista game. (FYI, The Sherpa can vouch for this one). 🔗Fix your sad cup.

💸 Six Figures, No Staff: Solopreneurs are scaling past $100K with zero employees, fewer headaches, and bots doing the boring stuff. 🔗Steal their playbook.

🎨 Canva’s Full AI Glow-Up: Six new AI tools just dropped. Presentations? Branded in seconds. Design? Basically done for you. Canva came to play. 🔗See what’s new.

☕ Final Sip:

ChatGPT’s remembering your secrets, Canva just did your branding, and AI improved your coffee. Freelancers, the bots are not coming—they’ve arrived.

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Tools gone wild! 😜

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

When AI Took the Stand

Business consultant Jerome Dewald thought he’d be clever—sending an AI avatar lawyer to argue his case in a New York appellate court. As someone who presents business strategies for a living, Dewald thought his AI sidekick could make a persuasive pitch. Spoiler: the judges didn’t buy it. Turns out courts are not impressed by robots in suits. In fact, they shut down the feed faster than Dewald could hit “send” on his apology, noting he’d failed to mention that he wouldn’t appear in person.

Dewald later called it “an experiment.” The court called it “over.”

📌Lesson Learned: AI should make you more human, not more creepy. Whether you're pitching a client or pleading your case, show up in the room—real or virtual.

🧭 What’s Next?

You’ve polished your pitch, streamlined your workflow, and automated the tasks that used to slow you down. But we’re just getting started. Next time, we’ll bring you more tools to save time, boost your professionalism, and help you stay ahead.

Ready to level up? 👉 Stay ahead with Tool Sherpa AI

— Your Sherpa Team