The Art of Asking

From "I asked Claude" to "I know how to ask Claude."

• Your real cold email — rewritten 5 ways
• Your personal Sales Voice template (saved & reusable)
• 3 email skeletons: cold open, follow-up, win-back
• The 5 levers of a great prompt — in your head

Same model. Same time of day.

Two prompts. Wildly different output.

The only thing that changed: how I asked.

The lazy prompt

The levers-loaded prompt

Lever 1 · Role

Tell Claude who it's pretending to be.

Lever 2 · Context

Tell Claude about your situation.

Who you are. What business you're in. Who the reader is. What just happened.

Lever 3 · Task

Tell Claude what you actually want done.

Lever 4 · Format

Tell Claude how the answer should come back.

• "Under 100 words"
• "In three bullet points"
• "As a table with these columns: name, price, lead time"
• "Subject line included"
• "Two paragraphs, no greeting"

If you don't say, Claude guesses. And it usually guesses too long.

Lever 5 · Examples

Show, don't tell.

Paste an email you wrote that you liked. Or an ad you saw that worked on you. Claude will match the style way better than if you describe it.

The hardest lever. Worth the most.

Get an email on the table.

Got a real cold email you've sent? Paste it into a fresh chat. Don't have one yet? Next slide makes you a starter in ten seconds.

Either way: we rewrite it five times. One lever per rewrite. Same chat.

No email yet? Make one

Write a plain first-draft cold email introducing
No Worries Roofing & Solar to homeowners in
[CITY]. Keep it simple — we're about to make
it better.

Send it. Whatever comes back is raw material — the five levers do the rest.

Rewrite 1 · Lever = Role

Rewrite this email as if you're a contractor
with 20 years of experience who hates
marketing-speak.

Send. Read. Notice the tone shift.

Rewrite 2 · Lever = Context

Now imagine you're emailing a homeowner in
[CITY] who just had a hailstorm damage their
roof last week. Same email, with that specific
reader in mind.

Rewrite 3 · Lever = Task

Now rewrite it again — but the goal is JUST
to get them to text me back a thumbs-up.
Not a call, not a sale, just a thumbs-up.

Sharper goal → shorter, punchier email.

Rewrite 4 · Lever = Format

Now give me three versions:
- one under 50 words
- one in two short paragraphs
- one as a friendly text-message-style note

Label them clearly.

Rewrite 5 · Lever = Examples

Got an email you love? Use it. If not, paste this one:

Here's an email I liked:

Hey Dave, it's Tony from Tony's Auto. Your truck's due
for its 60k service — I've got a slot Thursday if you
want it. I'll throw in the tire rotation, no charge,
since you've been coming here since the Bronco. Takes
about an hour, coffee's on me. Just text me a thumbs-up
and I'll hold the spot.
— Tony

Rewrite my original email in that exact voice.

The hardest lever. Worth the most.

Five versions. Which one wins?

Read them all. Pick a favorite. Tell me WHY — specifically.

Every rewrite happened in the SAME chat. Context kept building. New chat = throw away everything Claude learned.

Your Sales Voice template.

A reusable prompt header. Paste it at the top of any sales-related chat. Claude already knows how you sound.

I want you to help me write a "Sales Voice" prompt template I can reuse.

Here are the facts about my business and how I want to sound:

Business: roofing and solar installation in [YOUR CITY]
Company name: [NAME]
Tagline: [TAGLINE]

How I want to sound:
- Like a contractor, not a marketer
- Direct, no fluff, no "I hope this email finds you well"
- Confident but not pushy
- Short — sub-100-word emails by default
- Subject lines that don't look like spam

What I never want: corporate, ChatGPT-default tone, or anything that
reads like I'm filling in a template.

Write me a prompt template I can paste at the top of any chat before I
ask for a specific email — so when I say "write a follow-up to John,"
you already know who I am and how I sound. Output it in a code block.

Iterate until it sounds like you. Then save it — next slide.

Three email skeletons.

Now write a cold-open email skeleton I can adapt for any new prospect. Use [BRACKETS] for the parts I'll fill in.

Now write a follow-up skeleton for a prospect I emailed 5 days ago and haven't heard back from.

Now write a win-back skeleton for a prospect who got a quote 2 months ago and went silent.

One email you have to send.

Draft it with your Sales Voice template. Send it or don't — but draft it. Text me the prompt you used.

Session 3 — Projects & Memory

We give Claude a permanent brain for your business. Once you set this up, you'll never paste your Sales Voice template again — it just knows.

Bring: competitor websites you want to study, and your rough pricing for a typical roof and a typical solar job (ballpark is fine).