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Lesson 4

Automating the Paperwork

Every business has unavoidable paperwork: proposals, contracts, invoices, job postings, onboarding documents, vendor emails. AI can draft most of these in minutes instead of hours.

Business Proposals

Winning proposals are specific, benefit-focused, and professional. Use this prompt:

Write a business proposal for [client name] for [service/project]. Scope: [brief description]. Timeline: [X weeks/months]. Price: $[amount]. Include: executive summary, scope of work, what's included and excluded, timeline, pricing, and a next-steps call to action. Tone: professional and confident.

Customize the sections and you have a proposal that would take most people 2–3 hours to write, done in 10 minutes.

Job Postings That Attract the Right People

Write a job posting for a [role] at a small [industry] business. Key responsibilities: [list]. Required skills: [list]. What makes this role special: [why someone would want this job]. Tone: honest and inviting, not corporate-speak. Length: under 400 words.

Great job postings attract great candidates. Most job postings read like legal documents. AI can help you write like a human.

Vendor & Partner Emails

Negotiating with suppliers, following up on late deliveries, asking for better pricing — these emails carry real consequences and most people agonize over them:

Write an email to my [supplier/vendor] requesting [outcome: better pricing / faster delivery / resolve an issue]. Context: [situation]. I've been a customer for [X years/months]. Tone: professional and direct. Don't be aggressive but be clear about what I need.

The SOP Template

If your business has processes that need to be repeatable, AI can write the Standard Operating Procedure:

Write a simple SOP for [process]. The person doing this will be new to the role. Break it down into numbered steps. Include what to do if something goes wrong at each step.

Practice

Exercise 1

Identify one piece of business paperwork you dread writing. Write an AI prompt that would produce a solid first draft — specific enough that the output would actually be usable.

💡 Think about what the reader of this document needs to know and feel after reading it. Structure your prompt around that outcome.
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