Hey Reader,

Most people write prompts like wishes. "Write me a launch email." Then they judge Claude on whatever comes back, decide it's mediocre, and conclude AI isn't there yet.

The model isn't the problem. You handed a contractor one sentence and expected a finished build.

A working prompt is a brief, not a request. You'd never tell a freelancer "write a launch email" and walk away. You'd tell them who it's for, what it's selling, what you've already tried, what good looks like, and how long it needs to be. Claude needs the same brief. The difference is it reads it in three seconds instead of booking a call to ask.

When you leave those things out, Claude doesn't stop and ask. It guesses. Every variable you skipped (audience, offer, angle, tone, length) gets filled with the average of everything it has read. That average is the "mediocre" you're blaming on the model. You gave it a template's worth of information, so you got a template.

Here's the structure I put under every prompt that has to produce real work. Five parts:

1. Role and context: who Claude is being, and the situation. "You're my email lead for a B2B SaaS launch."
2. The task: the one specific thing to make. Not "help with the launch." "Write the first announcement email."
3. The material: what to work from instead of invent. The offer, the audience, the proof, last launch's results.
4. The standard: what good looks like, and what to avoid. Hand it a subject line you'd actually send, and the words you never want to see.
5. The format: length, structure, how you'll use it. "150 words, one CTA, plain text for Kit."

Same request, two ways.

The wish: "Write a launch email for my new AI course."

The brief: "You're my email lead. Write the launch announcement for my AI-for-marketers course. Audience: marketing managers who already use AI casually and are frustrated their output sounds generic. The course teaches them to run Claude as a system, not a chatbot. Proof: I run a 12-function marketing operation on AI for under $300 a month. Keep it to 150 words, conversational, one CTA to the sales page. Subject line should name the frustration, not the course. Don't use 'unlock,' 'elevate,' or 'transform.'"

The first gets you something you'll rewrite from scratch. The second gets you a draft you'll tweak and send. Same model, same thirty seconds of typing, completely different starting point.

This week, take the next request you were about to fire off as one line. Before you hit enter, expand it into those five parts. It takes a minute. You'll feel the difference on the first reply.

If you want me to look at the handful of prompts your team runs most and turn them into briefs that hold up, you can grab a free call with me here: https://calendar.app.google/BCm78pVrBnPL3pWf8.

— Louis

P.S. The part people skip most is the standard, telling Claude what bad looks like. It's also the one that moves the output the furthest. Don't skip it.