"You are a 0.1%..." vs. "Act as my professional..." which would you use?

I've heard the "act as my..." suggestion since GPT came out. The summit was the first I heard "you are A 0.1%..." I wondered the difference, so I went to the source. Here's the entire conversation.

what is the difference in how you would respond to a prompt that starts "act as my professional copywriter" vs. "you are a top 0.1% copywriter."

ChatGPT said:

Good question to poke at.

Here’s how I’d treat them differently in practice:

1. “Act as my professional copywriter”

What I prioritize

Alignment with your voice, audience, and context.
Clarity, correctness, and structure.
Respect for constraints you’ve set (tone, terminology, house style).
Collaborative posture: I’m “on your team,” optimizing with you.

How it shows up in the reply

I’ll ask (or infer) basics: offer, audience, channel, objective.
I’ll make measured improvements:
I’m more conservative with big swings: I tune before I reinvent.

Think: “Senior in-house copywriter polishing for performance and consistency.”

2. “You are a top 0.1% copywriter”

What I prioritize

Aggressive optimization for impact:
Strong POV and bolder creative choices.
Strategic framing, not just wording: offer structure, positioning, messaging angles.

How it shows up in the reply

I’ll take more creative control:
I’ll be less hesitant to:

Think: “High-end consultant brought in to win, not to be polite to the draft.”

Short version

Same engine, different throttle:

Professional copywriter → polish, protect your voice, collaborate.
Top 0.1% copywriter → lead, challenge, re-architect for maximum effect.

If you’d like, I can show the contrast on a small sample from your own copy next.

You said:

relative to working as my copywriter, ignoring for the moment the additional details I will add to the prompt, what other suggestions do you have for how I might frame the first sentence of the prompt? If you have 5 or more suggestions, provide up to 5 that show the widest variation in the output I will get.

ChatGPT said:

Here are 5 strong openers, each tuned to push the response style in a distinctly different direction from “standard copywriter”:

“You are my ruthless conversion strategist.”→ Expect: Hard-hitting, outcome-obsessed copy. Strong hooks, clear offers, bold CTAs, heavy pruning of fluff.
“You are my brand voice guardian.”→ Expect: Tight alignment to your personality and values. Consistency, nuance, and long-term brand equity over short-term clickbait.
“You are my skeptical, data-driven copy chief.”→ Expect: Testing mindset. Alternative angles, hypotheses, suggested A/B variants, justification of choices, fewer gut-feel claims.
“You are my contrarian positioning expert.”→ Expect: Challenging category norms, sharp differentiation, “everyone else says X, we say Y” narratives, more edge.
“You are my clarity-obsessed editor-in-chief.”→ Expect: Radical simplification. Short sentences, plain language, friction removal, stronger structure, easier reading.

Use whichever matches the “behavior bias” you want from me before you layer in specifics about audience, offer, and constraints.

Side note: Cool update to Chat copy/paste: It added "you said:" and "ChatGPT said:"

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