Claude Prompts for Business: 40 Templates by Department

The best Claude prompts for business all share one structure: real context about your company, one concrete deliverable, and a specified format. Below are 40 copy-ready templates organized by department — marketing, sales, customer support, operations, HR, finance, and strategy — drawn from how we run our own small business on Claude every day. Replace anything in [BRACKETS] with your specifics, paste in your real material, and treat every output as a first draft that you edit before it leaves the building.

How to use these prompts (read this first)

Prompt lists usually fail for one reason: people copy the prompt and skip the context. Claude has never met your customers, doesn't know your prices, and can't guess your tone. So before any of the templates below, start your conversation with a short context block — five sentences you write once and reuse everywhere:

Context for everything in this conversation: I run [BUSINESS TYPE] called [NAME]. We sell [PRODUCT/SERVICE] to [WHO] at [ROUGH PRICE POINT]. Our tone is [e.g., plain-spoken, no hype, a little dry]. Our customers care most about [THE REAL THING THEY BUY FROM YOU]. Don't invent facts, numbers, or testimonials — if you need information you don't have, ask me.

That last sentence is the most important one in this article. Claude will confidently fill gaps with plausible inventions unless you tell it not to — and in business writing, an invented statistic or fake customer quote is a liability, not a time-saver. If you haven't set Claude up yet, our step-by-step install guide takes about ten minutes, and the free plan is enough to run everything on this page.

Marketing prompts (1–6)

Marketing is where most businesses start with AI, and where the output most often sounds like everyone else's. The fix is feeding Claude your actual voice — real emails you've written, your best-performing post — before asking for anything new.

Interview me to build a positioning statement. Ask me one question at a time — about who buys from us, what they tried before us, what they say when they're happy, and who we lose deals to. After eight questions, draft three one-sentence positioning statements in plain language, no buzzwords, and tell me the tradeoff each one makes.

Here are the five questions customers ask us most often: [PASTE]. Turn each into one blog-post idea with a working title, the search phrase a customer would type to find it, and a five-line outline. Flag any topic where we'd need real data or a customer example to write it credibly.

Here is a long piece of content we already made: [PASTE ARTICLE/TRANSCRIPT]. Repurpose it into: one LinkedIn post, one email to our list, and three short social captions. Keep every claim traceable to the original — don't add new facts. Match the voice of this sample of my writing: [PASTE SAMPLE].

Draft this month's customer newsletter. Here's what actually happened: [3–5 BULLETS: news, a customer problem we solved, a tip]. One clear topic per section, one call to action total, under 350 words. Write it like a person, not a brand — here are two past emails customers replied to: [PASTE].

Write six variants of copy for [AD / LANDING PAGE HEADLINE] for [OFFER]. Give me two led by the problem, two led by the outcome, and two led by an objection ("too expensive," "we already have a vendor"). Under 20 words each. Then tell me which one you'd test first and why.

Act as a skeptical CMO reviewing my marketing plan: [PASTE PLAN]. List the three assumptions most likely to be wrong, the one channel that looks like a distraction, and the cheapest test that would tell us in 30 days whether the core bet is working.

If social channels are a big part of your mix, we've published deeper prompt sets for LinkedIn posts and product descriptions — same method, more reps.

Sales & outreach prompts (7–12)

Claude's job in sales is preparation and drafting, not persuasion. It's excellent at turning research and call notes into tailored, specific outreach — and terrible when asked to "write a sales email" cold, because specificity is the whole game.

Here is public information about a prospect: [PASTE: their site's about page, a recent post, a job listing]. Write a three-sentence opener for a first email: one sentence showing I actually read this, one connecting it to the specific problem we solve, one low-pressure ask. No flattery, no "I hope this finds you well."

Draft a three-email follow-up sequence for a prospect who went quiet after [WHAT HAPPENED — demo, proposal, intro call]. Each email must add something new (a relevant example, an answer to a likely concern, a genuinely easy out), not just "bumping this." Space them for days 4, 10, and 20.

Here are notes from the last five deals we lost and what the prospect said: [PASTE]. Group the objections into themes. For each theme, write the honest response — including where the objection is fair and we should say so — and one question that reopens the conversation instead of arguing.

Turn these discovery-call notes into a one-page proposal: [PASTE NOTES]. Structure: their situation in their own words, what we'd do in plain steps, timeline, price of [X], and exactly one option to say yes to. Flag anything in my notes that's ambiguous enough that I should confirm it before sending.

Convert this raw call recap into a CRM entry: [PASTE]. Format: 3-line summary, decision-maker and their stated priority, objections raised, competitors mentioned, agreed next step with date. Quote the prospect exactly where it matters; don't paraphrase commitments.

Using only the material I paste (their public pricing page, docs, and reviews), build an honest comparison of us vs. [COMPETITOR]: where they're genuinely stronger, where we are, and which customer each is right for. This is for training our own team, so no spin — the reps will see through it and so will prospects.

Cold outreach deserves its own playbook — subject lines, personalization at scale, spam-filter realities — and we wrote one: Claude prompts for cold emails that get replies.

Customer support prompts (13–17)

A customer sent this angry message: [PASTE]. Draft a reply that (1) acknowledges the specific problem without corporate apology-speak, (2) says exactly what we'll do and by when, and (3) offers [WHAT I'M AUTHORIZED TO OFFER] only if it fits. Keep it under 120 words. Then give me a one-line internal note on what likely caused this.

Here are five resolved tickets about the same issue: [PASTE, NAMES REMOVED]. Write a help-center article that would have prevented these tickets: a title matching how customers describe the problem in their own words, numbered steps, and a "if this didn't work" section.

Based on these ten common questions we get [PASTE], write a saved-reply library: one warm, plain-English response per question, each with a [PERSONALIZE HERE] marker where the agent must add something specific. Flag any question where a canned reply is the wrong tool and a human should write fresh.

Here's a week of support tickets, anonymized: [PASTE]. Propose a triage taxonomy: 5–8 categories, a priority rule for each, and which categories are really product bugs or documentation gaps wearing a support-ticket costume.

I have to tell a customer no: [SITUATION — refund outside policy, feature we won't build, etc.]. Draft a response that states the decision clearly in the first two sentences, explains the actual reason without hiding behind "policy," and offers whatever we genuinely can do instead. Don't soften it into ambiguity — an unclear no creates a second angry email.

Operations & project management prompts (18–23)

This is the quietly highest-ROI department for AI in a small business: the writing nobody has time for — SOPs, status updates, meeting notes — that determines whether the business runs on systems or on memory.

Here is a raw meeting transcript: [PASTE]. Extract: decisions made (with who made them), action items as "owner — task — due date," open questions nobody answered, and anything that was assigned to no one — that last list is the one that sinks projects.

I'm going to describe how I do [PROCESS] off the top of my head, messy and out of order: [BRAIN DUMP]. Turn it into a step-by-step SOP a new hire could follow without asking me anything. Where my description was vague, insert a [CLARIFY: question] marker instead of guessing.

Draft a one-page kickoff brief for [PROJECT]: goal in one sentence, what done looks like, what is explicitly out of scope, owner per workstream, and the three things most likely to delay it. Here's what I know so far: [NOTES]. Ask me up to five questions before writing if the notes leave real gaps.

Turn these bullet-point notes into a weekly status update for [AUDIENCE — client, boss, team]: [BULLETS]. Lead with the single most important thing, then: on track / at risk / blocked, each with one line of why. No filler, no "great progress this week."

Run a pre-mortem on this plan: [PASTE]. Assume it's six months from now and the project failed. Write the five most plausible reasons it died, ranked by likelihood, and the cheapest thing we could do this week to guard against each.

Here are three vendor quotes for [SERVICE]: [PASTE]. Build a comparison table: price normalized to the same unit, what each includes and excludes, contract terms and exit clauses, and questions to ask each vendor before deciding. Point out anywhere the quotes aren't comparable and I might be misled by the headline number.

HR & people prompts (24–29)

Write a job description for [ROLE] at a [SIZE] company. Here's what the person will actually do all day: [REAL TASKS], and what would make us say "great hire" after a year: [OUTCOMES]. Cut every requirement that isn't truly required — a shorter honest list beats a wish list that scares off good people.

From this job description [PASTE], build a structured interview kit: six questions targeting the real skills, what a strong vs. weak answer sounds like for each, and one practical exercise the candidate could do in 30 minutes that mirrors the actual job.

Create a 30/60/90-day onboarding plan for [ROLE]. By day 30 they should [X], by 60 [Y], by 90 [Z]. Include who they should meet, what they should read, and one small real task in week one — people learn a business by doing it, not by touring it.

Help me draft performance feedback for someone who [SITUATION]. Here are specific examples I've observed: [PASTE]. Make every point behavioral — what happened and its effect — never a personality judgment. Then flag anything in my examples that's too vague to be actionable, because vague feedback is worse than none.

Rewrite this policy in plain English at an eighth-grade reading level without changing its meaning: [PASTE]. Then list any clause that's ambiguous enough that two reasonable employees could read it differently — those are the ones that end up in disputes.

I need to have a difficult conversation with [ROLE] about [ISSUE]. Play the other person — respond the way someone defensive but reasonable actually would — and after we run it twice, tell me where my framing invited pushback and what to say instead. Start by asking me for the background you need.

Finance & admin prompts (30–34)

One rule before this section: Claude is a strong explainer and drafter of financial material and an unreliable calculator. Have it structure the analysis and write the words; have a spreadsheet — or an accountant — own the arithmetic.

Write a three-stage sequence of payment-reminder emails for an invoice that's [X] days overdue: friendly nudge, firm follow-up, final notice before we pause work. Keep the relationship recoverable at every stage — this is a customer we'd like to keep, just one who doesn't pay on time.

Here is our P&L for the last two quarters: [PASTE, SANITIZED]. Explain it to me like I'm smart but not financially trained: what moved, what's noise vs. trend, and the three questions you'd want answered before drawing conclusions. Don't recompute the numbers — take them as given and interpret.

I'm building next year's budget for [BUSINESS]. Before I touch numbers, give me the question set a good CFO would make me answer: fixed vs. variable costs, what breaks if revenue comes in 20% under plan, where we're one vendor or one client away from a problem. Then turn my answers into budget line-item categories.

Turn our expense policy [PASTE] into a decision-tree FAQ an employee can use in ten seconds: "Is it under $X? Is it client-facing? Then..." Cover the five most common real situations: [LIST]. Flag any case where the policy as written doesn't actually give an answer.

I have a spreadsheet where [DESCRIBE COLUMNS AND WHAT YOU WANT — e.g., "column A is client name, column D is invoice date, column F is amount; I want overdue balances per client"]. Write the formula, explain it in one sentence, and tell me the most likely way it silently breaks (blank rows, text-formatted dates, duplicates).

Spreadsheet work with Claude goes much deeper than one prompt — our Excel formulas prompt guide covers VLOOKUP, nested IFs, debugging, and Google Sheets equivalents.

Strategy & leadership prompts (35–40)

Used lazily, Claude is a yes-man. Used well, it's the colleague who has read everything and doesn't care about your feelings — which is exactly what strategy work needs. Every prompt in this section is built to make Claude push back rather than agree.

Facilitate a SWOT analysis for my business — but don't generate it. Interrogate me: one question at a time, and when my answer is generic ("good customer service"), push for evidence. Only after 10–12 questions, assemble the SWOT from what I actually said, and mark which entries rest on my opinion vs. observable fact.

I'm about to decide: [DECISION]. Argue the other side as forcefully as honesty allows. What am I underweighting, what would a smart skeptic say, and what evidence would change my mind? After the counter-argument, tell me the strongest version of my own case — I want to know if it survives.

Here are our annual goals: [PASTE]. Break them into quarterly priorities with explicit tradeoffs — for each quarter, name not just what we'll do but what we're consciously NOT doing and why. If the goals are too many to sequence honestly, say so and propose what to cut.

Draft a monthly update for [INVESTORS / BANK / PARTNERS] from these raw numbers and notes: [PASTE]. Structure: headline, metrics vs. last month with one line of context each, lowlights stated plainly (they build more trust than the highlights), and asks. Never smooth over a bad number — flag it and explain it.

Here are notes from [N] customer conversations: [PASTE, ANONYMIZED]. Synthesize the recurring themes, quote the exact customer language for each (their words are marketing copy we couldn't write ourselves), and list what surprised you against what we assumed. Separate what customers say they want from what their behavior in these notes suggests they'll pay for.

I need to announce [CHANGE — pricing, policy, restructuring] to [TEAM / CUSTOMERS]. Draft the announcement, then list the five questions or objections it will trigger, and write an honest answer to each. If any answer is uncomfortable to write, tell me — that's usually the part of the decision that needs rethinking, not rewording.

Where these prompts go wrong — the honest caveats

• Claude doesn't know your business. Every template above works in proportion to the real material you paste in. A prompt with no context produces content-shaped filler.
• Verify anything numerical or factual. Claude can misread figures, mangle arithmetic, and confidently invent statistics. Numbers, legal claims, and anything a customer will rely on get human verification before they ship.
• Watch what you paste. Strip customer names, account details, and anything under an NDA. Anthropic's consumer tiers don't train on conversations by default, and business tiers add contractual protections — but treat any hosted AI as a third-party processor and act accordingly. (Our plans and pricing guide covers which tier fits which situation.)
• The first output is a draft. The users who get the most from Claude reply "make it shorter, drop point two, sharpen the ask" two or three times. The ones who get the least copy the first answer and hit send.

Copy-paste is the slow way to do this

These 40 templates will genuinely carry you a long way. But retyping and re-tweaking prompts is itself a chore — and prompts age as models change. That's the problem Skillforge exists to solve: the workflows above, and dozens more, packaged as reusable Claude skills you install once and invoke by name, maintained as the models evolve.