Hello,
Last note covered what projects are. This one is three worth building first, with exactly what to load and the instructions written out so you can copy them straight in. This is still the basics, but the basics done properly is further than most businesses ever get.
Quotes
Make a project called Quotes.
Load into it: your price list or rate card, two or three quotes you were happy with, and one that lost if you can find it. Word docs, PDFs, spreadsheets, photos of paper, all fine.
Copy this into the instructions box and fill in the blanks:
"You help me write quotes. We are a [what you do] business. When I give you a job, draft the quote using our pricing and the same tone and layout as the example quotes. Flag anything where the margin looks under [your number]%. Never commit to lead times, delivery dates or anything special without me confirming it first. If our price list contradicts something I ask for, point it out rather than working around it."
Then use it for real. Forward the customer's email in, or photograph the scribbled list from the counter and ask for a draft. First few times it'll get bits wrong, tell it what was wrong and it remembers. Within a couple of weeks the drafts start arriving nearly right and a quote that took forty minutes takes ten.
Emails you put off writing
Make a project called Emails.
Load into it: five or six emails you've actually sent that worked well. Try and get a mix, chasing money, saying no, responding to a complaint, a price increase. The examples matter more than the instructions here, it learns your voice from them.
Instructions:
"Draft emails in my voice based on the examples. Plain, direct and human, no corporate waffle. When I describe a situation, write the email and then add one line underneath flagging anything you think I should consider before sending."
This is the one that pays every single day. The email you'd normally rewrite four times and send at 9pm gets done in one go at 2pm.
Your biggest customer
Make a project named after them.
Load into it: the trading agreement or terms, any pricing you've agreed and the important email threads. Add to it as things happen, that's the point of it.
Instructions:
"This project holds everything about [customer]. Answer my questions from what's loaded. If I'm about to offer or agree something that contradicts what's already been agreed with them, warn me. When I tell you something new about them, remember it."
Then when the phone call comes about what was supposedly agreed in March, or the renewal lands, or a new rep takes over the account, you ask the project instead of excavating your inbox. Do it for one customer first. You'll end up doing it for your top five.
Remember these projects get better every week because you correct them and they remember the corrections.
Two things to keep you right. Make sure every draft gets your eyes before it goes anywhere, the machine types, you judge and that never changes no matter how good it gets and before customer information goes into any of these, check what your business is comfortable with. Your own prices and templates are one thing, customer data is a decision for whoever owns that decision in your place.
Worth knowing where this road goes, because projects have a ceiling too. Once you've got five or six running you start wondering why the knowledge lives in separate cabinets instead of one place the whole business can draw on. We've just started building exactly that at our place, a proper knowledge base for the whole company and it's easily the biggest AI job we've taken on. Early days, and I'll write it up as it happens rather than after it's polished and I’ll include anywhere we mess up.
Reply and tell me which one you built first. If you're not sure what to load for your version of it, describe the job and I'll point you right.
Andrew
Ps. A while back I asked on LinkedIn for the most boring job in your business. One answer was a sales lad who loses whole afternoons matching customer product lists against his company's codes, line by line. That's project four for anyone with a version of it, load your product file, tell it to match and flag anything uncertain, check the draft. Afternoons back.