Set Up Claude the Right Way: A Consultant’s Playbook
A three-part playbook that turns Claude from a generic chatbot into an AI that knows your consulting business, sounds like ...
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Instructor
David Tainsh
Course details
Lectures
:
14
Level
:
Beginner
- Description
- Curriculum
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Free course · A Consultant's Playbook
What would change if Claude opened every chat already knowing your business?
Ninety minutes from now you can have a Claude Project that knows who you serve, what you sell and how you sound — and drafts your call briefs, proposals and content without you re-explaining a thing.
A locked knowledge baseSeven sections Claude reads before every single reply.
A rules block that holdsUnder 400 words governing tone, format and what it must never invent.
Four prompt chainsCall prep, proposals, repurposing, and Claude as a critic.
If you recognise this
Every chat starts from zero, so every draft needs rewriting.
Four things go wrong before you have typed a word — and all four are still there no matter how carefully you phrase the request.
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You re-explain yourself daily
The same background, pasted into a new conversation, every time. Yesterday's context is gone and today's draft is written by a stranger.
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It cannot guess your niche
With no segment to write for, it writes for every consultant alive — which reads as writing for nobody in particular.
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It has no offers to point at
Ask what you sell and it produces something plausible and adjacent. Plausible is the dangerous part, because it looks finished.
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It invents proof when pushed
Client names and percentages that read convincingly and are not real. This is the one that reaches a prospect before anybody checks.
None of the four is a prompting problem. They are all setup problems, which is why rewording the request never fixes them for long.
And the obvious fix makes it worse
You don't have an AI problem. You have a setup problem.
The instinct is to write a better prompt. That treats a missing-information problem as a wording problem, and it is why so many consultants quietly conclude the tool is overrated.
What most people do
- Rewrite the prompt. Add adjectives, add "act as an expert", add length.
- Collect prompt templates from other people's businesses.
- Paste the same background in again, slightly reworded.
- Edit every draft heavily, then wonder where the time went.
What this course builds
- One document Claude reads before every reply, written once.
- A short rules block that governs how it behaves in every chat.
- A Project that opens already briefed, so you start at the question.
- Drafts you approve and send rather than rebuild from scratch.
Anybody can copy a prompt. Nobody can copy the knowledge base and the rules sitting underneath yours.
The method
Knowledge, then voice, then action. The order is the whole thing.
Three parts, each one built on the last. Rules written before there is a knowledge base have nothing to govern, and prompts written before either one are just prompts.
Part 1 · Knowledge
Give it the context it has been guessing at
- A seven-section knowledge base, built from your actual business
- Two or three real ideal clients, not one idealised one
- Your voice pulled from three samples of your own writing
- Loaded into a Project and deliberately stress-tested
Part 2 · Voice
Set the rules that make it behave like you
- Tone rules with your banned words named specifically
- Format rules that stop a four-line email becoming nine paragraphs
- A no-go list that ends invented clients and figures
- Push-back rules, so it disagrees instead of applauding
Part 3 · Action
Point it at the work that actually pays
- A pre-call brief that predicts the objections coming
- A first-pass proposal from your real offers and pricing
- One talk or post turned into a week of content, in your voice
- Claude as a critic on the decisions you are least sure about
Every part ends with a build workshop where the whole thing is run on a real consultancy — including the outputs that came back wrong, and exactly what fixed them.
The result
What you actually walk away holding.
Not notes and not a prompt list. A working setup inside a Claude Project, built from your own business, that you own permanently.
- A locked knowledge base. Seven sections covering who you serve, what you sell, and the proof you can actually evidence.
- A rules block that holds up. Under 400 words, tested against three deliberately awkward requests.
- A Claude that sounds like you. Built from three samples of your own writing rather than a list of adjectives.
- Four prompt chains. Each with the follow-up prompt that turns a usable draft into a sendable one.
- Three daily habits. A morning brief, a post-call debrief and a Friday review. None over two minutes.
- A system you can maintain. One prompt tops up the knowledge base; another sharpens a rule that keeps failing.
Every asset is built from one knowledge base, so all of it sounds like the same person — because it is.
What changes in practice
The same Tuesday, before and after.
Nothing about your expertise changes. What changes is where every piece of work starts from.
Discovery call
From an hour of research to a briefed six minutes
Before: skim their site, guess at the pains, improvise the questions. After: a brief that maps their situation to problems you actually solve and names the three objections coming.
Proposal
From a blank page to a draft you edit
Before: start from the last one and rewrite it. After: messy call notes in, a structured first pass out, using your real offers and pricing, with anything uncertain flagged for you to check.
Content
From one post a fortnight to a week from one idea
Before: stare at the blank box, publish something safe. After: one talk or long post becomes three posts, a newsletter intro and five future topics, all recognisably yours.
Decisions
From a tool that agrees to one that argues
Before: ask for a second opinion and get enthusiastic agreement. After: the assumption you had not tested, named plainly, before you commit to it.
Fit
Who this is for, and who it isn't.
This is for you if
- You are a consultant, agency owner or service-based expert.
- You already use AI casually and get generic output you rewrite.
- You are tired of re-explaining your business in every chat.
- You want a setup you own, not a folder of other people's prompts.
- You have ninety minutes and something honest to say about your business.
This is not for you if
- You want AI to run your consultancy without your judgement in it.
- You are looking for prompt tricks rather than a permanent setup.
- You do not yet know who you serve or what you sell.
- You will not write your own business down honestly.
- You want content volume rather than content that sounds like you.
Get started
Build it once. Own it for good.
No card, no trial, no upsell inside the lessons. Create an account and the whole course opens.
Free
14 lectures · around 90 minutes · lifetime access
Including every future update to the course.
Why free? It is the setup every other course we make assumes you already have. Everyone is better off if you are holding it before you buy anything.
Where this takes you next
Claude is set up. Now point it at something.
Each of these opens by assuming a knowledge base already exists. Finish this course and you can start any of them at lesson one instead of at the setup.
Outbound
AI Powered LinkedIn Lead Machine
- Turns your ideal client profiles and proof points into an outbound system that books calls.
Funnel
1-Day Consultancy Funnel Builder
- Takes your offers, positioning and pricing and builds a complete acquisition funnel in a day.
Inbound
AI Authority Content Engine
- Turns your positioning and tone of voice into published content that brings the right people in.
Or build the whole business around it — The AI Consulting Operating System
Everything you build in this course, running an entire consultancy on top of it: delivery, pricing, acquisition and operations.
Questions and answers
The things people ask before they start.
Why is this course free?
Because every other course we make opens by assuming you already have a knowledge base, and most people don't. It is better for everyone if you are holding a working setup before you consider buying anything. There is no upsell inside the lessons.
Do I need to pay for Claude?
Not to complete the course. The free tier is enough to follow every lesson and build the knowledge base and rules block. A paid plan is worth it once you are running the daily habits in Part 3 and want the headroom — but start free and upgrade only when the habit sticks.
How long does it actually take?
Around ninety minutes of lessons. The one part that takes real thought is writing your business down in lesson 1.2, and a rough version in twenty minutes is enough to carry on with. The document is meant to be revisited rather than perfected on day one.
Do I need to be technical?
No. There is no code, no integrations and no other tools. Every lesson comes with copy-paste prompts written in plain English — no placeholder codes, no variables to substitute.
What's the difference between this and just using Claude?
You are not learning prompt tricks. You are building a permanent setup so that every conversation starts already knowing your business, your voice and your rules. The difference is between a deputy and a search engine.
Will this work for my consulting niche?
Yes, provided you sell expertise to businesses. Nothing in the method is sector-specific — the worked example is an operations consultancy, but the seven sections and four rule sets apply to any advisory practice.
What if I already have a knowledge base?
Start at Part 2. Most knowledge bases we see are missing the two sections that matter most — proof, and a tone of voice drawn from real writing — so lesson 1.2 is still worth an hour even if the rest is done.
Do I get the prompts to keep?
Yes. Every lesson has a downloadable prompt pack and SOP, and lifetime access includes every future update. What you build is yours and lives in your own Claude account, not ours.
Still deciding? The first two lessons take ten minutes and produce a Project with your name on it. That is a reasonable place to find out whether the rest is worth your afternoon.
The last word
AI is leverage. It is not a replacement for judgement.
You own the point of view, the judgement and the relationship. Claude produces the proof and the execution. Keep that order and this stays useful for a very long time.
Start free — create your account
Pre-Course Set Up
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1
0.1 Set up Claude and your workspaceTen minutes of setup so the next ninety are productive.
Which Claude plan you actually need and why, what a Project is and how it differs from an ordinary chat, and the one document you will be filling in for the rest of the course. You finish this lesson with an empty Project named after your business, ready to receive everything you build.
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2
0.2 Set up Claude and your workspace - Live
The whole setup done on screen: which Claude plan you actually need and why, what a Project is and how it differs from an ordinary chat, and the one document you will be filling in for the rest of the course. You also run a single prompt before anything is configured and keep the answer — it is the before shot you compare against at the end of Part 3. Follow along or watch first and build after. Either way you finish with an empty Project named after your business, ready to receive everything you come to build.
PART 1 — Knowledge: Build Your Locked Knowledge Base
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3
1.1 Why Claude Sounds Generic
The problem isn't your prompting. It's that Claude has never met you.
Every chat starts from zero, so Claude fills the gaps with the most average consultant it can imagine. This lesson reframes that as a setup problem rather than a wording problem, introduces the four pillars a knowledge base has to carry, and gets you a seven-section skeleton plus a sharpened consultant profile and a tone-of-voice extract taken from your own writing.
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4
1.2 Fill the Four Pillars
The specific beats the polished. Write what is true.
Work through the five remaining sections: two or three genuinely different ideal clients, the problems people actually pay to remove, your positioning, your offers, and the proof Claude is allowed to point at. You bring the truth about your business; Claude sharpens the wording and interrogates the gaps. A rough version in twenty minutes is enough to carry on with — this document is meant to be revisited, not perfected on day one.
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5
1.3 Build workshop: the Clarion knowledge base, locked and tested
Watch the whole thing built, loaded and deliberately stress-tested.
The full Part 1 prompt pack run end to end on Clarion Consulting, then loaded into a Project and attacked with three sharpening questions. You will learn to read the three failure signatures — generic, contradictory, and confidently wrong — and what each one tells you to go back and fix.
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6
1.4 Build workshop: the Part 1 prompts, run live
Every prompt from Part 1, run end to end on a real consultancy — including the ones that came back wrong.
Watch the full Part 1 prompt pack executed on Clarion Consulting: the knowledge base skeleton, the consultant profile sharpened after a first draft, the tone of voice pulled from three real writing samples, then the ideal clients, problems, positioning, offers and proof. You see every prompt, every output, and every point where a human judgement call replaced what came back. The failures stay in — a workshop where everything works first time teaches you nothing about what to do when yours does not. Follow along with your own document, or watch it through once and build after.
PART 2 — Voice: Set Claude's Voice and Rules
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2.1 Knowledge vs Instructions
Two slots in a Project. Two completely different jobs.
A Claude that knows your business still sounds wrong, pads answers with caveats, and invents case studies when pushed. That is a behaviour problem, not a knowledge problem, and loading more into the knowledge base never fixes it. Knowledge is the brief; Instructions are the manager.
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8
2.2 The Four Rules
Tone, format, no-go, push-back. Short list, big difference.
Four short rule sets: how Claude should sound, how it structures and delivers answers, what it must never do regardless of how you ask, and when it should disagree with you. The push-back rules are the ones most consultants skip and the ones that turn Claude from a content machine into something worth arguing with.
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2.3 Build workshop: assembling and installing a demo companies rules block
The rules block written live, installed, then deliberately broken.
Clarion's four rule sets assembled into a 250–400 word Project Instructions block, pasted in, and then attacked with three awkward tests — one on tone, one too vague to answer, and one inviting invented client results. Including the first version that failed and exactly what changed.
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2.4 Build workshop: install it and break it
The four rule sets assembled into a single Instructions block, installed, and then deliberately attacked. You will see the word count checked against the 400 ceiling, the placeholder brief from Part 1 replaced, and three awkward tests run in a fresh chat — one on tone, one too vague to answer, and one that openly invites Claude to invent a case study. The first version failed two of the three, and you see exactly which line fixed each one. You finish with a rules block that has been tested rather than assumed.
PART 3 — Action: Put Claude to Work
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3.1 The Four Highest-Leverage Use Cases
Where the setup pays for itself in week one.
A pre-call brief that maps a prospect to your core problems and predicts their objections; a first-pass proposal drawn from your own offers, pricing and proof; one long-form piece turned into a week of on-brand content; and Claude used as a critic on the decisions you are least sure about. That fourth one is where most consultants realise what they have actually built.
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12
3.2 The Daily Habit, and the Guardrails
Three small prompts that compound, and four lines you do not cross.
A morning priority brief, a post-call debrief and a Friday pattern review, each under two minutes. Alongside them the guardrails: nothing client-facing goes out unedited, no number goes out without a source, no confidential client data goes in. You stay accountable. Claude is a tool, not a deputy.
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3.3 Build workshop: running all four use cases on a demo company
Everything you have built, pointed at real work.
Discovery prep from a live prospect profile, a proposal drawn from messy call notes, one talk repurposed into ten assets, and a genuine critique session — plus the three daily-habit prompts. Closes with the 30-day check: time, quality, confidence, and what a disappointing answer is actually telling you.
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3.4 Build workshop: run it on a real business
Everything you have built, pointed at real work. Watch all four use cases run end to end on Clarion Consulting: a pre-call brief from a real Operations Director profile, a Delivery Reset proposal drawn from messy call notes, one conference talk turned into three posts and a newsletter intro, and a genuine critique session on a pricing decision Priya was unsure about. The three daily-habit prompts run back to back at the end so you can see how short they actually are. Watch the follow-up prompts rather than the first drafts — the cut, the sharpen, the pressure-test. That second pass is the step almost everybody skips, and it is the difference between output you edit heavily and output you approve.
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