Good Prompt, Bad Prompt

The same question asked two ways, and why one of them actually works.

Before you start, take the names out

Some of this asks you to paste your own emails in as examples. Those emails have names in them.

Delete the names before you paste anything. Swap them for [parent] and [child].

Your voice is in the sentences, not in the names. Nothing is lost by taking them out, and it means there is never a family’s details sitting in a chat window in the first place.

This one is about AI generally, not Claude specifically. Everything here works the same whichever one you are using. I use Claude, so that is what my screenshots and settings guides show.

The reason you’re getting bland answers

It isn’t that AI is rubbish. It’s that a vague question can only ever get a vague answer.

Ask “write an email to parents about the new term” and it has no idea who you are, who they are, what you sound like, or what you actually need to say. So it writes the beige middle of every email ever written, and you look at it and think, well that’s no use.

The good news is the fix is four things, and none of them take longer than typing the bad version did.

1. Tell it who you are first

This is the one everybody skips, and it’s the one that matters most.

The version that gets you nothing:

Write an email to parents about the new term.

The version that works:

I run a swim school in Leeds. Around 200 families, mostly 3 to 8 year olds, and I know a lot of them by name.

I need an email telling parents that autumn term starts on 8 September, and that they need to confirm their place by the 1st or it goes to the waiting list.

Warm and short, the way I'd say it at poolside. Not corporate. And don't open with "we hope you've had a lovely summer", everyone says that.

Why it works. It now knows the business, the age range, the relationship, the actual facts, the tone, and one thing to avoid. That last line does more work than people expect.

2. Show it one of yours

Describing your tone rarely works. “Friendly and professional” means nothing, because it means something different to everybody.

The version that gets you nothing:

Write it in a friendly tone.

The version that works:

Here's an email I sent last term that felt exactly like me:

[paste your email here, with the names taken out]

Write the new one in that voice. Same sort of length, same way of opening and closing.

Why it works. You’ve stopped describing your voice and started showing it. One real example beats three adjectives every time.

There’s a fuller version of this in Turn Your Old Emails Into Your Actual Brand Voice, where you get it to work the pattern out for you once and remember it.

3. Give it a job title

You already know how to brief somebody. You do it every time a new teacher starts. This is the same thing.

The version that gets you nothing:

Help me with my social media.

The version that works:

You're my social media manager. I run a children's dance school for 2 to 7 year olds in a small market town, and most of my new families come from word of mouth rather than adverts.

Give me five post ideas for September that would make a parent actually stop scrolling. Nothing salesy, nothing that sounds like an advert. Tell me why you think each one would work.

Why it works. Handing it a role changes how it answers, not just what it says. Ask it as a social media manager and you get a social media manager’s thinking. Ask it as your accountant and you get something else entirely.

4. Tell it exactly what’s wrong

Nobody gets it right first time, including me. The mistake is what people do next.

The version that gets you nothing:

Make it better.

The version that works:

Too formal. I'd never say "we apologise for any inconvenience".

Cut it to about half that length, move the Thursday class option into the second paragraph, and make the last line sound like a person rather than a sign-off.

Why it works. “Better” means whatever it decides it means, which is almost never what you meant. Telling it what’s actually wrong is the difference between three goes and thirty.

This is exactly the same as week one with a new teacher. You don’t say “do it better”. You say “you’re standing too far back, and don’t start until they’re all looking at you.”

One extra worth knowing

Add this line to anything where being wrong would matter:

If you're not sure about something, say so rather than guessing.

It will make things up if it doesn’t know, and it does it confidently. Telling it that admitting uncertainty is allowed genuinely reduces how often that happens. More on that in What Claude Is Rubbish At.

Putting it together

You don’t need all four every time. A quick question doesn’t need a job title and an example.

But for anything that’s going out with your name on it, the order is:

1. Who you are and what your business is
2. What you actually need
3. How it should sound, with an example if you have one
4. Then tell it what’s wrong until it’s right

And here’s the bit worth noticing. Every good prompt above starts by explaining your business all over again. That works, and it’s completely free, and you can do it today.

It’s also the reason people stop bothering after a fortnight. Typing your business out every single morning gets old fast.

That’s what setting it up properly solves, and that’s a different job for a different day.

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August 2026 edition. I check these pages every quarter and update them when things move.