AI Training Library · Module 01

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AI Library · Module 01

Prompting
Foundations.

Five ingredients of a useful prompt. Three guardrails you own — not the robot. Memorize these and you're already in the top 10% of people using these tools.
What this module covers

The whole framework on one page.

If you can text your kid, you can use these tools. The trick isn't the technology — it's learning to ask in a way that gets back something useful. Five ingredients on the top half of this page; three guardrails on the bottom; one full example prompt at the end you can copy and adapt tonight.

Ingredient 01 ROLE — Who you want it to be
You're my marketing assistant. You write the way I'd write if I had four uninterrupted hours and a strong cup of coffee — direct, warm, never corporate.
Why it worksTelling the AI who to be is the cheapest way to change every word that follows. "Be my bookkeeper." "Be a tough editor." "Be the friend who'll tell me my idea is bad." The role frames everything underneath it.
Ingredient 02 TASK — What you want done
Write the May newsletter for my farm.
Why it worksOne sentence. A verb and a noun. If you can't say the task in one sentence, you haven't decided what you actually want yet — and the AI will give you something blurry to match.
Ingredient 03 CONTEXT — What it needs to know
We sell at the Viroqua farmers market on Saturdays. Three things happened this month: the asparagus came in two weeks early, we lost two laying hens to a fox, and we're adding a strawberry U-pick the third weekend of June. Our list is mostly regulars who've been buying from us for a few seasons.
Why it worksThis is where most people stop too soon. The more you tell it about your business — names, dates, the regulars, what didn't go to plan — the more the output sounds like you instead of a generic ad. Context is the difference between "another email from a farm" and "the email from that farm."
Ingredient 04 FORMAT — How the answer should look
Give it to me as four short paragraphs and a P.S. about the U-pick. Sign it from Diane. Subject line first, then the body.
Why it worksTell it the shape and you skip the cleanup. Four paragraphs. A bulleted list. A table with three columns. A short email with a P.S. A 30-second script. If you don't say, you'll get the AI's default — usually too long and stuffed with headings you didn't ask for.
Ingredient 05 TONE — What voice it should use
Talk like a neighbor, not a corporate flack. Plain words. Short sentences. If a line sounds like it could be in a SaaS marketing email, rewrite it before you show me.
Why it worksTone is the easiest dial to turn and the one most people forget. Friendly. Direct. Neighborly. Punchy. Dry. Warm. Skeptical. Pick one and say it out loud in the prompt. You can change it in the next message if you don't like what comes back.
The three guardrails Things you own — not the robot

The five ingredients above get you good output. These three guardrails make sure the good output doesn't bite you. Non-negotiable, regardless of how good the tools get.

Guardrail 01 SAFETY — Don't paste what you wouldn't email

Customer credit card numbers, employee social security numbers, passwords, private contracts, your bank login — keep all of it off the screen. Always.

On the free tier of most AI tools, assume what you paste in might be looked at by a human at some point. On the paid tier, your content typically isn't used to train the next model — but that's not the same as private. Treat any AI tool like a smart consultant you just met: helpful, but you wouldn't hand them your bank statements on day one.

The test: If you wouldn't email it to a stranger you trust 80%, don't paste it into the chat box.

Guardrail 02 TRUST — First draft is a starting point

The first thing the AI hands you is rarely the answer. It's the opening of a conversation. Push back. Re-ask. "Make it shorter." "That sounds like a robot." "Try again, but warmer." "Cut the third paragraph and expand the second."

You're the editor. That's the whole job. AI is a writer who never gets tired and never takes feedback personally — use both of those superpowers.

The rule of thumb: If you accept the first draft without changing anything, you probably didn't ask for enough. Push it once. See what comes back.

Guardrail 03 VERIFY — Read every word before you send

Especially numbers, dates, and names. AI can be confidently, beautifully wrong — and the more confident-sounding the output, the easier it is to skip the check.

Specific things to double-check every single time: phone numbers, email addresses, deadlines, dollar amounts, citations, the spelling of a person's name, and any claim that includes a statistic. Two seconds of skimming saves a week of cleanup.

The frame: The name on the email is yours. The signature at the bottom of the post is yours. If something's wrong in there, you're the one who's wrong — not the robot.

All five, one prompt The template you can adapt tonight
You're my marketing assistant. (ROLE) Write the May newsletter for my farm. (TASK) Context: We sell at the Viroqua farmers market on Saturdays. Three things happened this month — the asparagus came in two weeks early, we lost two laying hens to a fox, and we're adding a strawberry U-pick the third weekend of June. Our list is mostly regulars who've been buying from us for a few seasons. (CONTEXT) Format: Subject line first, then four short paragraphs and a P.S. about the U-pick. Sign it from Diane. (FORMAT) Tone: Talk like a neighbor, not a corporate flack. Plain words. Short sentences. If a line sounds like a SaaS marketing email, rewrite it before showing me. (TONE)
How to use itCopy the template. Strip the labels in parentheses (they're only there to show you the ingredients). Swap the farm story for your own business. Paste into Claude or ChatGPT and read the first draft out loud. Then push it once with a refinement — that second turn is where most of the magic lives.
What's next Five workflows you can run tonight

Now that you have the framework, Module 02 — Five Starter Workflows gives you copy-paste prompts for the five things most small business owners do every week: newsletter, customer follow-up, research, social posts, and a bookkeeping pass.

The prompts in Module 02 already have the five ingredients baked in. Use them as-is, or — once you've seen a few — write your own.