"How many Mondays are in the season?"
The answer was 30. The proposal sounded exactly like the owner, warm and plain. It was also $770 short. Nobody checked the math until we held it up to a calendar.
AI Prompts, Reviewed takes one prompt or workflow from How I AI, Claire Vo's show where guests share their screens and walk through how they really use AI. We run it on a small-business job, score it, and tell you what we'd change.
Credit: Based on "Automate Client Proposals and Onboarding with a Claude 'Pipeline Operator'," a workflow from How I AI (hosted by Claire Vo, written up by the ChatPRD team), with Grace Clarke (consultant, Grace Clarke Consulting; first head of community at Shopify). Full episode. Grace's site.
What the original does
Grace Clarke skips the perfect prompt. She records a two-to-three-minute voice note about the problem and lets Claude ask questions back. Then she builds two files. A "proposal maker" holds the rules and structure. A "voice guide" holds how she talks and the words she never uses. Claude then builds each new client a proposal, pre-work, and an intake form. Her line that started the voice guide: "I think I need a guide that will make everything more like me."
The test
Composite (made-up) bid for a three-person landscaping crew. Test clock: Tuesday, Oct 6, 2026. The prospect is a small homeowners' association pricing the 2027 season.
- Mowing: weekly, Monday Apr 5 to Monday Oct 25, 2027, at $385 a visit.
- Spring cleanup: $1,850.
- Mulch: 40 yards installed at $68, so 40 × $68 = $2,720. Our cost on that mulch: 40 × $29 = $1,160.
We did it her way: a voice note, a voice guide, a proposal maker. The voice guide was the best part. It cut "synergy," "solutions," and "we're passionate about." The proposal sounded like a person who mows lawns.
Then we checked it. Three problems:
- Visits: the AI wrote "April through October, 28 weekly visits," which is 7 months × 4. A calendar says 30. That's 2 × $385 = $770 missing. The real total is 30 × $385 + $1,850 + $2,720 = $16,120. The proposal said $15,350.
- Payment terms: none. We'd front $1,160 of mulch and a full spring cleanup before the first invoice.
- Intake form: it asked for brand colors and "your goals for our work together." A crew needs the gate code, the irrigation shutoff, and who gets the invoice.
A proposal that sounds like you can still price like a stranger.
The fix was a math table the AI can't skip, plus one rule: 25% down at signing. That's 25% × $16,120 = $4,030, more than three times the $1,160 mulch bill.
Verdict: 7/10
Strengths: the voice guide works. Starting with a voice note gets real details out of a busy owner. Pre-work and intake in the same pass is a nice touch.
Weakness: it's built for a consultant. Password-protected web proposals are more than most crews need. Nothing makes the AI show its math or ask for money up front.
Founder tweak: keep the voice guide. Add a line-item table with quantity × price on every row. Count visits from real dates. Put deposit and payment terms in every proposal. Rewrite the intake form for your trade.
Copy the MCAFax version
This is our own rewrite, not the original prompt. Copy the original from Grace Clarke on How I AI.
You write proposals for my small service business. Before you write, ask me up to 5 questions about anything missing.
I will paste: my voice guide (how I talk, words I never use), the job notes, my prices, and the customer's name.
Build the proposal in this order:
1. Two sentences on what they told me they need, in my voice.
2. A line-item table: item, quantity, unit price, line total. For recurring work, count visits from the actual start and end dates and list those dates. Never estimate weeks from months.
3. Show the math for the grand total line by line.
4. Payment terms: deposit percent and dollar amount due at signing, then when the rest is billed.
5. What's not included, and what a change costs.
6. One clear next step with a date.
Then write a 6-question intake form for MY trade: access, safety, who approves work, who gets the invoice, anything I could damage.
Use my voice guide. No hype words. Flag any number you are unsure of instead of guessing.
Paste into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot. Leave out customer details you don't need.
Before your next proposal goes out
- Write a voice guide once: 10 phrases you say, 10 you never say.
- Paste it, your job notes, and your prices into the MCAFax version.
- Recount every recurring visit on a real calendar.
- Check the grand total with a calculator, not the AI.
- Never send a proposal without a deposit line.
- Then chase the money on time: invoice payment reminders (more prompts).
SBA on managing your business finances.