How do I get better results from AI?
AI doesn't read your mind — it reads your prompt. The difference between a useless answer and a usable one is usually four small habits. This guide walks you through them, in four steps, with the exact words to use.
Give it context 10 minutes
The tool knows nothing about your business until you tell it. Who you are, who you're writing for, and what "good" looks like — that's the difference between generic and genuinely useful.
Before you ask for anything, add a sentence or two of setup:
- Who you are and what you do
- Who the output is for
- What you already know or have tried
How to do this
Weak: "Write a welcome email."
Strong: "I run a small landscaping company. Write a welcome email to a new residential customer who just booked a weekly mowing service. Keep it warm and short, and mention that we'll send a reminder before each visit."
The second one works because the tool now knows your business, your customer, and the tone you want. It can't invent those — you have to hand them over.
Done when: every prompt you write starts with who you are and who it's for.
Say exactly what you want 10 minutes
Vague in, vague out. Tell the tool the format, length, tone, and audience — and it will hit them. Leave any of them out and it guesses, usually wrong.
How to do this
Add the specifics to your prompt:
- Format. "A bulleted list," "a 3-paragraph email," "a table."
- Length. "Under 150 words," "one short paragraph."
- Tone. "Friendly and plain," "formal," "no jargon."
- Audience. "For a busy owner who's not technical."
Weak: "Summarize this report."
Strong: "Summarize this report in five bullet points, under 100 words total, in plain language a non-technical owner would understand."
Done when: your prompt names the format, length, tone, and audience.
Treat the first result as a draft 15 minutes
The first answer is rarely the best one — and that's fine. Point at what's wrong and ask it to fix that one thing. Iterate, don't restart.
How to do this
Instead of starting over, tell it what to change:
- "Make it shorter."
- "Make the tone more formal."
- "Lead with the price, not the features."
- "Rewrite the second paragraph — it's too wordy."
Each round gets closer. Most owners give up after the first answer; the ones who get good results are the ones who ask for a revision. Two or three rounds is normal.
Done when: you've asked for at least one revision before accepting an answer.
Build a prompt library 20 minutes
When a prompt works, save it. A short list of your best prompts means you're not rewriting them from scratch every week — and your team can use them too.
How to do this
Keep a simple document (a note, a shared doc) with one entry per task:
| Task | Prompt |
|---|---|
| Welcome email | Context + format + tone (from Step 1) |
| Quote draft | Context + length + audience |
| Social post | Context + format + tone |
Label each with what it's for and the one line that makes it work. Next time, you copy, paste, and adjust the details — no reinventing.
Done when: you have a written list of your three most-used prompts.
Give the tool context about your business, say exactly what you want in terms of format, length, tone, and audience, treat the first result as a draft you refine, and save the prompts that work. Four habits, and the output stops being a gamble.
I'm David. I build AI that runs on your machines.
Twenty years in engineering leadership, now helping small and mid-size businesses put AI to work without handing their data to a cloud. If you'd rather I build it than you learn it, let's talk.
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