A FREE GUIDE — DO IT WITH ME RIGHT NOW
A plain-English playbook for owner-operators who want AI working inside their business by lunchtime. No coding. No consultants. No fluff.
Try the first workflow in 60 seconds. Or follow the full walkthrough and have it running on your machine inside an hour.
Format
PDF + walkthrough
First result in
~60 seconds
Full setup
~1 hour
Price
Free
60 seconds · no install required
Open claude.com in another tab. A free account is fine. Paste the prompt below, fill in your actual morning, and you'll get a one-page brief back in about 30 seconds.
If that output is genuinely useful, the rest of this page shows you how to make it automatic — pulled from your real inbox, calendar, and CRM, every weekday morning, while you're still in the shower.
You're acting as my chief of staff for the day. I'm going to paste my morning context below — be brutally efficient and produce a one-page brief. OUTPUT FORMAT 1. Top 3 priorities today (plain English, no fluff) 2. Meetings — with one line of prep for each 3. Emails I must reply to today, with a draft reply for each in my voice 4. Anything at risk (deals, deadlines, people) 5. Anything else worth flagging Keep it under 400 words. British English. Don't pad. If something doesn't need to be said, don't say it. HERE'S MY CONTEXT: CALENDAR TODAY [paste your meetings — times, attendees, what they're about] UNREAD EMAILS (top 5–10) [paste subject lines + a sentence of context, or paste full emails if short] WHAT'S ON MY MIND [2–3 sentences on what's stressing you or what you're pushing forward this week]
What you should get back — in about 30 seconds
Morning brief — Tuesday
Example output
Top 3 priorities
Meetings
Emails to handle today (drafts ready)
At risk
Flagged
Got something useful? You've just experienced what Claude is actually for — not chatting, doing real work. Now let's make it automatic, pulled from your real tools, every weekday before you wake up.
The walkthrough · ~45 minutes
An AI assistant that knows your business — your customers, your tone, your tools, your non-negotiables — and produces real work on your behalf. Not a chatbot. An operator.
Three sections. Tick each one off as you go. Open Claude Desktop in another window and follow along.
01
Claude Desktop, Cowork, and the Small Business plugin. Five steps, click by click.
~15 min02
The step 99% of people skip — the one that makes Claude actually know your business.
~20 min03
Run the morning briefing on your real inbox. Schedule it. Done.
~10 minHeads up. Claude doesn't send, publish, or delete anything without your approval. It drafts, surfaces, suggests. Your existing tool permissions still apply — Claude inherits whatever access you have, no more. Chapter 6 of the PDF covers data privacy in full. Show your accountant if you need to.
01
The basics
Go to claude.com/download. Get the Mac or Windows app. Drag it to Applications. Open it. Sign in.
If you don't have a Claude Pro account yet (£15/month), upgrade now. It pays for itself the first time the assistant drafts an email you'd have spent ten minutes writing.
At the top of Claude Desktop you'll see Chat / Cowork / Code. Click Cowork. It'll ask you to select a folder — this becomes the assistant's workspace.
Create a fresh folder somewhere obvious (Documents → “Claude Workspace”) and select it.
Important. Claude can only see files inside the folder you select. Outside that folder, it's blind. This is a feature, not a bug — it's how you keep your private files private.
Click Customize in the top right. At the bottom of the panel, click Browse plugins. Find Small Business (or search for it). Click Install. Wait ten seconds. Done.
Click Manage on the Small Business plugin and scroll through the skills you just got. You'll see things like:
/business-pulse — a one-page cross-functional snapshot of cash, sales trends, what needs attention/daily-briefing — your morning agenda from calendar, inbox, CRM/call-list — who to follow up with today, ranked/canva-creator — on-brand marketing assets in CanvaRead three of the descriptions so you know what's possible. That's enough for now.
This is the single most important button in the whole installation. Click it. Cowork will ask a handful of questions about your business — what you do, who your customer is, what counts as a qualified lead, what cash threshold you want flagging.
Answer honestly and briefly. Save the plugin.
You now have Claude for Small Business, customised, running on your machine.
02
The bit most people skip
This is where 99% of people stop and never get the real value. Out of the box, Claude is a smart generalist. Skip this 20-minute setup and you'll be permanently re-explaining yourself every conversation. Do it once, and you have a colleague who knows your business.
A claude.md is a plain text file that lives in your workspace folder. Claude reads it at the start of every session. Think of it as the standing brief for a new assistant who just walked in.
Don't write it yourself. Paste this into Cowork and let Claude draft it:
I want you to create a claude.md file for my workspace. I'll tell you a few things about me — please turn them into a clear, well-structured standing brief that you'll read at the start of every session. ABOUT ME - I am [your name]. - I run [business name], which does [one-line description of what you sell and to whom]. - My tone is [direct / warm / plain-English / formal / etc.]. - I prefer British spelling. NON-NEGOTIABLES - Never delete, send, or publish anything without checking with me first. - If you spot a better way of doing something, tell me. - If you think I'm overcomplicating something, push back. - Always read all three files in about-me/ at the start of every session. - Always append new context to memory.md at the end of every meaningful session. WHEN ASKING ME QUESTIONS - Ask one at a time, not in batches. - Don't ask permission for obvious things — just do them. Save the file to the root of my workspace as claude.md.
Claude will draft it. Read it. Edit anything that's wrong. Save it.
about-me/ folderInside your workspace, create a folder called about-me. Drop three files inside it.
Click each button below to copy the starter template. Paste into a text editor, fill in the gaps, save.
about-me.mdWho you are, what the business does, who your customers are, active projects, team, competitors, differentiators.
writing-style.mdHow you want Claude to write in your voice — words to use, words to avoid.
memory.mdA running log Claude updates after each session. Solves the “Claude forgot what we agreed” problem.
Then tell Claude in your claude.md:
Always read all three files in about-me/ at the start of every session. Always append new context to memory.md at the end of every meaningful session.
Go to Customize → Connectors. Connect these in order. Each takes about 60 seconds.
Permissions transfer. Claude inherits whatever permissions you have in each tool. If a junior staff member is view-only in QuickBooks, Claude (acting for them) inherits the same restriction. Nothing leaks sideways.
Open a fresh task in Cowork and paste this:
Check my inbox and my calendar for tomorrow. Tell me anything important, and draft replies to anything urgent. Don't send anything — just leave the drafts.
What you should see:
claude.mdIf that worked: you now have an AI assistant that actually knows your business. You are already further along than most people who'll ever install this thing.
03
Where the time leverage starts
You've got the infrastructure. Time to actually use it.
We'll start with the workflow that pays back fastest for every owner-operator: the automated morning brief. This is the live version of the demo you ran at the top — but now pulling from your real inbox, calendar, and CRM instead of pasted text.
Give me my morning briefing. Read my calendar for today and tomorrow, my unread emails, and any deals in my CRM marked 'hot' or 'last activity > 7 days'. Output a one-page brief in this order: 1. Top 3 priorities today 2. Meetings with prep notes 3. Emails I must reply to today, with draft replies ready 4. Deals at risk 5. Anything else worth flagging Keep it under 400 words. British English. No fluff. Don't send anything — just produce the brief and leave the drafts.
First run may take 60–90 seconds while Claude pulls from each tool. Watch the status update under the prompt — it'll tell you what it's doing.
First time through, it'll probably over-flag things. That's fine. Tell Claude what's noise vs signal, and then add one line to your memory.md so it remembers next time.
Example:
Append this to memory.md under "How I work": For morning briefings — I don't need to be told about meetings already on the calendar; only flag conflicts or things needing prep. Filter out all newsletter emails. Always include any deal in CRM with last activity over 14 days.
Now Claude knows. Next time, the brief will be tighter. This single behaviour — telling Claude to log preferences to memory — is the difference between a chatbot and an assistant.
Once the brief is genuinely useful, schedule it.
Settings → Scheduled Tasks → New Task. Set it to run every weekday at 7am. Have it email you the result.
You'll wake up tomorrow with a one-page brief in your inbox. Without you doing anything.
Requires your computer to be on with Cowork running. A small always-on desktop (Mac Mini, ~£600) is ideal if you want this and the other workflows running while you sleep. PDF Chapter 7 covers the full power-user setup.
Take the full manual home
You've done the essentials on this page. The PDF is the comprehensive 18-page version. It covers:
No phone number. No “free strategy call” upsell trick. Just the guide and the occasional useful email — about two a month, mostly the kind of thing you'd actually open. Unsubscribe in one click. See privacy.
Who wrote this
AI Consultant for SMBs · Plymouth, UK & Bangkok
I help owner-operated SMBs (10–100 staff, £1m–£50m revenue) diagnose expensive manual workflows and replace them with AI that actually works — usually with a payback period under 12 months.
Marketing graduate (Bangkok), Master's in Digital Effects (Bournemouth), 10 years in London's creative industry, now an AI builder who can both run the strategic conversation with a 60-year-old founder and ship the working solution.
If your business is bleeding hours on quoting, follow-up, reporting or admin — we should talk.
FAQ
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