Claude AI Prompts for Small Business: 30 Tested Prompts for Real Work

I use AI tools every day in product, engineering and business work, and the difference between useless output and genuinely helpful output is almost always the prompt. Claude, made by Anthropic, is especially good at writing, analysis and working through long documents. This guide gives you a simple prompting method and 30 prompts you can adapt for your business.

The prompt formula

A strong prompt has five parts:

1. Context: who you are, your business, your customer.
2. Task: exactly what you want done.
3. Inputs: the information to work from (notes, data, documents).
4. Format: how the output should look.
5. Constraints: tone, length, what to avoid, and "ask me questions if anything is unclear".

Weak: "Write a Facebook post for my business."

Strong: "I run a residential cleaning company in Austin serving busy families. Write three Facebook posts announcing our new biweekly plan at $165 per visit for homes up to 2,000 sq ft. Tone: friendly, practical, no exclamation marks. Each post under 80 words, with one clear call to action to book on our website. Ask me if you need details."

Marketing prompts

1. "Here is my service page [paste]. Rewrite it for clarity for a homeowner comparing three companies. Keep all facts, shorten sentences, add a short FAQ of five questions customers actually ask."
2. "Write five Google Business Profile posts for [business] for the next month, each focused on one service, under 150 words, with a seasonal angle for [month and location]."
3. "List 20 questions potential customers ask before hiring a [trade] in [city]. Group them by stage: research, comparing, ready to book."
4. "Draft a welcome email sequence of four emails for people who downloaded our [lead magnet]. Goal: book a consultation. Include subject lines."
5. "Review this ad copy [paste] and identify unclear claims, missing information and anything that might be misleading."
6. "Create a 12-week blog content plan for [business] targeting long-tail questions our customers search. Include a working title and the main question each post answers."

Customer communication prompts

7. "Write a polite, firm reply to this customer complaint [paste]. Acknowledge the issue, explain what we will do, and offer [remedy]. Keep it under 150 words."
8. "Turn these notes [paste] into a clear quote email with scope, price, timeline and next steps."
9. "Draft a friendly reminder sequence for overdue invoices: before due, due date, 7 days late, 14 days late."
10. "Write a script for answering the phone and booking an appointment for [service], including questions to qualify the job."
11. "Rewrite our refund policy [paste] in plain English without changing its meaning."

Operations prompts

12. "Turn this description of how we do [task] into a step-by-step standard operating procedure with a checklist and common mistakes."
13. "Create an onboarding checklist for a new [role] for their first two weeks."
14. "Here is our weekly schedule and job list [paste]. Suggest a more efficient order of jobs and explain your reasoning."
15. "Draft a vehicle and equipment maintenance log template for a small service business."
16. "Summarise this supplier contract [paste] in plain English. List payment terms, renewal terms, cancellation terms and anything unusual I should ask a lawyer about."

Finance and pricing prompts

17. "Here are my monthly costs [paste]. Calculate my break-even revenue and the hourly rate I need at [hours] billable hours per month, showing your working."
18. "Compare these three supplier quotes [paste] and list differences in price, terms and risks."
19. "Here is last quarter's sales data [paste or upload]. Identify trends, best and worst products or services, and three questions I should investigate."
20. "Build a simple cash-flow forecast structure for the next six months based on these assumptions [paste]."

Always check calculations, and use a qualified accountant for tax decisions.

Hiring and team prompts

21. "Write a job description for a [role] at a small [type of business], including responsibilities, requirements, pay range [X], and what makes the job attractive."
22. "Create ten structured interview questions for a [role], with what a strong answer looks like."
23. "Draft a 30/60/90-day plan for a new [role]."
24. "Write a short, kind message declining a candidate after an interview."

Research and strategy prompts

25. "I am considering [decision]. List the main options, pros and cons, risks, and questions I should answer before deciding."
26. "Act as a sceptical customer. Read my offer [paste] and tell me why you would not buy."
27. "Here is my competitor's public website text [paste]. Summarise how they position themselves and where we could differentiate honestly."
28. "Explain [regulation or concept] in plain language and list the official sources I should check to confirm the details."

Document prompts

29. "Turn this rough outline [paste] into a professional proposal with an executive summary, scope, timeline, pricing table and terms."
30. "Proofread this document [paste] for clarity, grammar and consistency. Show changes as a list rather than rewriting everything."

Working with files and projects

Claude can work with documents you upload, such as PDFs, spreadsheets and text files, depending on your plan and settings. For ongoing work, organise related documents and instructions into a project so Claude has consistent context: your brand voice guide, service list, pricing and policies. This saves repeating background in every chat.

Accuracy and safety rules

• Verify facts. AI can be confidently wrong, especially about laws, prices and recent events. Check against official sources.
• Keep sensitive data out unless your plan and policies allow it. Do not paste customer card numbers, passwords or sensitive personal data.
• Disclose AI use where your industry or clients expect it.
• Add your experience. AI drafts are a starting point; your knowledge makes them valuable.
• Keep a human in the loop for anything sent to customers, legal documents and financial decisions.

Mistakes to avoid

1. One-line prompts with no context.
2. Accepting the first draft. Ask for revisions: "shorter", "more specific", "in our tone".
3. Using AI for facts without checking.
4. Publishing mass AI content without editing or original value.
5. No shared prompt library for your team.

Build a reusable business context

The fastest way to improve every prompt is to write a short business profile once and reuse it. Include:

• Business name, location and service area
• Services or products, with prices or price ranges
• Ideal customers and their main problems
• Brand voice: three adjectives and a few words you never use
• Policies: guarantees, refunds, booking rules

Paste it at the start of a chat, or save it in a project's instructions, then add the specific task. Output becomes more accurate and more consistent across team members immediately.

Review the profile every few months as prices, services and policies change, and keep one master copy so that everyone on the team is working from the same, current information. Outdated context is one of the most common causes of wrong AI output in a business.

Your next step

Pick three tasks you did this week that took over an hour. Write a prompt for each using the five-part formula, and save the ones that work in a shared document for your team.

The full guide, Using Claude AI for Your Business, covers setup and plans, prompting techniques, workflows for marketing, operations, finance, hiring and customer service, working with documents and projects, and safe use policies for $0.99.