You asked for something simple. What came back was fine, technically. Flat, generic, and nothing you would actually send.
So you patch it. You reply, make it shorter, make it warmer, take that bit out. Ten messages later you have something usable and you have spent longer than writing it yourself. Then tomorrow you start the same argument from the top, because the problem was never the answer. It was the briefing.
Twenty minutes here and you will have one skeleton with five slots in it. Fill the slots, send it, and the first answer is close enough to use. When it is not, you will be able to name which slot you left empty.
This is for anyone whose prompts are one line long and who has decided AI is just a bit disappointing. No jargon. No technical skill. This is the most useful twenty minutes in the whole course.
The proof behind this
Liz Elliott is not an engineer and never studied computer science. She runs 33 active social brands with AI help. Getting good answers is about how clearly you brief the work, not about technical skill.
What this lesson is
Lesson 4.1 of the free AI for Entrepreneurs course, in Module 4: Talking To AI.
Think about the first day of a new assistant. They are smart. They are fast. They know nothing about you. If you say write me a nice email, you get something generic, because you did not tell them who they are being, what it is about, what your writing sounds like, what to avoid, or what to hand back. AI works the same way. A strong prompt has five parts. Role, who the AI should be for this job. Context, what it cannot know unless you say it. Example, a real sample of what good looks like. Rules, the mistakes you want blocked before they happen. Format, the exact thing you want back. Each part fixes a different kind of bad answer, and this is the shape the rest of the course is built on.
New here? Use the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline to read this series in the best order.
Behind the paywall
The five part skeleton, in a block you can copy and keep
Three fully filled examples, from asking for a raise to working out why a post flopped
How to judge an answer part by part, so you fix the slot instead of arguing with the output
When to drop a layer, because five parts on a two second question is a waste
The one line reset for a chat that has gone sideways
The six mistakes, and the checklist
What paid subscribers get overall
Paid subscribers get every part of AI for Entrepreneurs in full. Every numbered step, every prompt in a block you can copy, the mistakes list, and the checklist at the end. You also get the rest of the run as it goes out, and the whole paid archive on Liz on the Web.
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The free half above is the concept, and it stands on its own. The locked half is the work, and it stays in your archive for as long as you are subscribed.
Click the button, subscribe, and the locked section below opens right away. You get this article now, and every other part in the series.
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The full walkthrough is below the paywall.
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