TL;DR: Before asking AI to build a marketing plan, analyze your pricing, or write a proposal, ask it this first: "What information would you need from me to give me a significantly better answer?" Most AI answers are weak because of context you left out, not because the model is limited. Letting it ask questions before it answers turns a one-shot request into a discovery conversation, and costs you nothing but two minutes.
Small businesses tend to blame the tool when ChatGPT, Claude, or Copilot returns generic advice. Usually the prompt is the problem: the AI is answering for an average business because that's all you gave it.
Why do AI answers come back generic?
Because the model fills the gaps you leave with averages. Ask "help me improve my pricing" and the AI has no idea about your margins, your competitors, your customer mix, your capacity, or whether you're trying to win volume or protect profit, so it produces advice that is true for everyone and useful to no one. The information you leave out of a prompt is often more important than the information you put in.
What's the prompt that fixes it?
Add one line before you ask for the deliverable:
"Before giving me recommendations, ask me the 10 questions you think would have the biggest impact on your answer."
So instead of:
"Help me improve my pricing."
Try:
"Help me improve my pricing. Before giving me recommendations, ask me the 10 questions you think would have the biggest impact on your answer."
A simpler variant works anywhere: "What information would you need from me to give me a significantly better answer?" Answer the questions, then let it produce the plan.
Where does this work best?
Use it on any task where your specifics change the right answer:
- Pricing analysis and packaging decisions
- Marketing plans and campaign strategy
- Proposals and bids for a specific customer
- Hiring plans and role definitions
- Solving a messy customer problem
- Budgeting and forecasting
The higher the stakes and the more your situation differs from the industry average, the more this prompt is worth.
Frequently asked questions
What prompt makes AI ask me questions first?
Use: "Before giving me recommendations, ask me the 10 questions you think would have the biggest impact on your answer." You can swap in any number, 5 for a quick task, 10 for something consequential.
Does this work in ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot?
Yes. It's a prompting technique, not a feature, so it works in any general-purpose AI assistant and requires no new software or subscription.
What if I can't answer all the questions?
Answer what you can and say so. Telling the AI "I don't track that" is itself useful context, and the questions you can't answer often point to the numbers your business should start tracking.
Isn't this just slower?
It adds about two minutes and usually removes a full round of rewriting. You're trading a fast generic answer for a specific one you can actually act on.
Can I reuse the questions later?
Yes, save the question list. For recurring work like proposals or quarterly planning, that list becomes a reusable intake checklist you can paste in with the answers already filled out.
Key takeaway
Give AI permission to interview you before it answers. For SMBs, it's one of the easiest ways to get substantially more value out of AI without buying another tool.
At Promptly, these are the kinds of insights we bring to businesses to maximize the value they get from AI. Visit promptlyconsulting.com to learn more.