How to Claude — for Small Business Owners

1 Claude isn't one tool. It's six.

💬Chat Brainstorm, draft emails, work through decisions out loud.
📁Projects One per business area. Persistent context. No re-explaining.
</>Code Clean spreadsheets, build simple tools, automate repetitive work.
👥Cowork Share context with your team or contractors.
★Skills Custom instructions and repeatable workflows.
🔗Connectors Connect Gmail, Drive, Calendar — bring your data in.

2 Pick the right model

OPUS 4.7 → Strategy, hard decisions, important client work

SONNET 4.6 → First drafts, daily emails, routine writing

HAIKU 4.5 → Quick rewrites, bulk variations, fast lookups

🧠 Sonnet 4.6 also supports Extended Thinking for deeper reasoning at lower cost.

Claude

for Small Business

Your unfair advantage for running a leaner, faster business without adding headcount.

Built by Crest Authority

3 Extended Thinking

Model selector▾

Opus 4.7👑

Extended Thinking on

🧠 Forces Claude to reason before answering. Use it for big decisions: pricing, hiring, contracts, strategy.

4 The small business setup

Make a Project for each part of your business. Drop in your docs once. Stop re-briefing Claude every chat.

OPERATIONS

SOPs, vendors, processes, recurring decisions

CUSTOMERS

Emails, follow-ups, reviews, support replies

GROWTH

Offers, content, ads, outreach, pricing

5 The prompt template

I'm a business owner of [your business].
I want [task] so that
[outcome].
Here's the context: [...].
Ask me anything unclear
before you start.

6 Eight use cases with example prompts

📣 Customer acquisition "Write a Google ad and two social posts for my [business type]. Target [customer type]. Lead with the problem they're already frustrated with."

✉ Sales follow-up "Write a follow-up to someone who requested a quote three days ago and hasn't responded. Friendly, no pressure, remind them what's included."

💬 Customer communication "A customer emailed asking why their order is delayed. Write a reply that's honest, apologetic, and gives them a clear next step."

💰 Pricing conversations "Help me write a price increase notice to send my recurring clients. We're raising rates 12% in 60 days. Firm but warm."

📋 Operations & SOPs "Here's how I handle a new customer order from start to finish. Turn this into a step-by-step SOP my team can follow without asking me."

⭐ Reviews & reputation "Write responses to these three Google reviews — one 5-star, one 3-star with a complaint, one 1-star. Professional, human, not copy-paste."

🧾 Financial clarity "Here are my last three months of expenses. Summarize where the money went and flag anything that looks like it could be cut or renegotiated."

🧑‍💼 Hiring "Write a job post for a part-time customer service rep. Here's what the job actually involves day-to-day. Filter for reliability and communication skills."

Not sure where to start? Take the 3-minute Crest Authority assessment to see exactly where you're leaking time or revenue today → crestauthority.com

7 Five power moves

📖

Turn how you work into a system

"Here's how I handle [process]. Write the SOP so someone else could run it without asking me questions." Start with the task that eats the most of your week.

Feed it your customer complaints

Paste your last 10 negative reviews or support emails. "What's the pattern? What's the one thing I should fix first?" Real signal beats gut feel every time.

📊

Audit your own business

"Here's my revenue, my top expenses, and where I spend my time. What's the highest-leverage thing I'm not doing?" Give Claude the numbers and let it push back.

Prep before the hard conversation

"I need to tell a long-term client we can no longer work with them. Help me draft it. Firm, respectful, no room for negotiation."

🏛

Write your own sales page

"Here are my services, my best customer results, and the three objections I hear most. Write a homepage that turns skeptics into inquiries."

8 What Claude is BEST at

✓Writing and rewriting at speed — emails, posts, replies, listings
✓Documenting how you do things so you can hand it off
✓Synthesizing reviews, calls, and feedback into clear patterns
✓Cleaning up and analyzing spreadsheets you already have
✓Pressure-testing offers, prices, and decisions before you commit
✓Turning rough thoughts into something a customer can read

9 What Claude is NOT best at

✕Real-time data it hasn't been given (current prices, today's stock)
✕Talking to your customers for you with no oversight
✕Final calls on hiring, firing, or big money decisions
✕Touching tools or accounts you haven't connected to it
✕Knowing what's true about your business unless you tell it
✕Replacing the judgment you've earned running the place

💡

10 The Small Business Owners mindset shift

Claude isn't a magic growth button — it's a fast, tireless junior staffer who can draft, summarize, research, and organize everything you keep pushing to tomorrow. The owners getting the most out of it aren't the most tech-savvy ones. They're the ones who've stopped trying to do everything themselves and started handing off the stuff that doesn't require them. Find where your business is leaking time or revenue today: crestauthority.com

🧠

Connectors Plug Claude into Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Slack, and dozens of other tools you already use. Find them in Settings → Connectors → Browse.