Ever ask Claude for an email and get back something that sounds like everyone else's email?
Usually Claude is missing something: who it's for, what you want them to do, how you sound.
So it fills the gaps with the most average guess.
The fix is simple: make Claude interview you first.
Five questions, a couple of minutes of answers, and the first draft comes back much closer to what you'd have written yourself.
(It works in ChatGPT and Gemini too.)
Right after this: the base prompt, three ready-made versions for an email, an offer and a plan, and how to make Claude do it every time without pasting anything.
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Right. Back to it.
The base prompt
Before you write anything, interview me.
Ask me 5 questions, one at a time, about what you need to know to do this well: who it's for, what I want them to do, what they already know, my constraints, and how I want it to sound.
Wait for each answer before asking the next question. When you have enough, tell me what you understood in 3 bullets, then write it.
Here's the task: [describe it in one line]Why one at a time: you give better answers, and Claude's later questions get sharper based on your earlier ones.
Why the 3-bullet summary: you catch a misunderstanding before it's baked into a whole draft.
Version 1: the client email
Before you write this email, interview me with 5 questions, one at a time. Cover: who's receiving it and our history, the one thing I want them to do, what might make them say no, any deadline, and how formal I should be.
Then write it in under 150 words.
The email: [one line, e.g. "following up on a proposal I sent two weeks ago"]Version 2: the offer
I want to write an offer for [product or service]. Before you draft anything, interview me with 5 questions, one at a time: who it's for, the problem it solves in their words, what they get, the price and why it's fair, and the biggest objection.
Then write the offer as a short page: headline, 3 bullets, price, one call to action.Version 3: the plan
Help me plan [project]. Before you suggest anything, interview me with 5 questions, one at a time: the goal and deadline, what's already done, my hours per week, my budget, and what's worked or failed before.
Then give me a week-by-week plan that fits those hours.Make Claude do it every time
Add this to your personal preferences in Claude's settings (menus move around, so search your settings for "preferences" if you can't find it):
For any writing or planning task longer than a paragraph, ask me up to 5 questions first, one at a time, unless I say "skip questions."The "skip questions" part matters. Some days you just want the draft.
If you use Projects, put the line in that project's instructions instead, so it only applies there.
Make it stick
Next time you start a request with "write me", add "interview me first" at the end.
That's the whole habit. If I could teach one prompt habit to everyone reading this, it'd be this one.
Five questions fix one draft. Answer them once in a file Claude can read, and you skip most of the interview on every draft after that. That's the whole idea behind The One-Person Company Playbook.
It's the complete setup for running a business where AI does the work of a full team. Inside:
A company folder with your brief, pipeline tracker and invoice log already laid out, so any AI picks up where you left off
Thirty AI roles across six departments, from sales to finance, ready to use
Six jobs that run on a clock: the morning briefing, follow-ups, invoice checks and more
The step-by-step path from picking a business model to your first paying customer
Works on Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or Grok, whichever you already pay for.
The catch: it takes about eight hours over a weekend to set up. After that, it's yours. $97, one-time (down from $297).
Talk tomorrow,
Zephyr
P.S. Try the base prompt on something you're writing today, then hit reply with the best question Claude asked you.