Most AI disappointments start with a prompt like “write me a proposal”. The model doesn’t know your company, client or goal — so it guesses. The result: correct, useless text. The fix is a five-element template.
Role: tell the model who to be. “You are an experienced B2B salesperson in logistics” sets vocabulary, perspective and detail level better than ten other instructions.
Context: the data a human would also need. Who the client is, what they buy, the communication so far, the goal — a meeting, a signature, an upsell.
Task and format: one specific instruction and the expected output structure. “Write a 150-word email: a rapport paragraph, three value bullets, one closing question.” The model will do exactly what you ask — and only that.
Example: show one model output from the past. This is the template’s most powerful element — models imitate patterns an order of magnitude better than they follow descriptions. Put the five elements together, save them as a template, and swap only the data. That’s how AI work saves time instead of consuming it.