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Shall we…

The phrases you use, the way you explain what you do, your prices, the way you respond to emails/DMs.

It’s specific to you. Your customers recognise it. Some of them chose you because of it.

The problem is that writing takes time you don’t have.

Emails. Social media posts. Follow-ups. DMs. Proposals. Newsletters. They should sound like you, and you’re the only one who knows exactly what it means.

This is the thing most solopreneurs and small business owners are sitting with right now: they know AI can help with content, but every time they try it, the result sounds generic but doesn’t match how they actually talk.

All you need is a “voice file”

What a Voice File Is

A voice file is a document that captures how you write. Your sentence patterns. The words you use and the ones you’d never use. How direct you are. How you explain a price/process. How you start an email vs how you end it.

You create it once and then give it to Claude. From that point on, Claude writes drafts that sound like YOU wrote them.

This works because AI doesn’t know your voice by default. When you give it your voice (or brand voice) as a reference document, it stops writing like everyone and starts writing like YOU.

Requirements:

• Device: PC or smartphone

• Time: 30 - 60 minutes

• Tool: preferably Claude free or pro (but you can use ChatGPT, Gemini, and others)

• Document: Google Docs or Microsoft Word

Step 1: Gather 5 to 10 pieces of your writing

Before Claude can write like you, it needs to learn from you.

Go through your phone, your email drafts, your sent messages, your social posts. Find 5 to 10 examples of writing that felt most like you. The things you wrote quickly, and naturally.

Good sources:

• Voice notes you transcribed

• Replies you sent to client enquiries

• WhatsApp messages to customers or colleagues

• Old captions you wrote for social media

• A proposal or quote you’re proud of

• A complaint response where you handled it well

Copy all of them into a single document (word or google docs). Don’t edit them, leave the typos, the short sentences, the way you actually write under pressure.

Step 2: Ask Claude to analyse your voice

Open Claude. Attach all your writing samples in and then paste this prompt underneath:

“Read everything above. These are real examples of how I write when I’m not overthinking it. I need you to identify my voice patterns. Specifically: the sentence lengths I like, the words I use most and the ones I seem to avoid, how direct or indirect I am, how I handle tone shifts between formal and casual, any phrases I repeat, and the overall rhythm of how I write. Don’t summarise the content. Analyse the style. Give me a bullet point list of what makes my writing distinctly mine.”

Read the output. It will surface things you’ve never consciously noticed about your own writing. This is your voice in writing you’ve done under normal business conditions, not just you trying to sound good.

Correct anything that’s wrong and add anything it missed. This becomes the foundation of your voice file.

Step 3: Interview yourself

This is the step most people skip. It’s also the most important one.

Claude knows your writing patterns now. What it doesn’t know yet is your opinions, your stances, your way of seeing things. Two people can have similar sentence structures but completely different points of view. Both parts need to be in the file.

Paste this into a new Claude chat:

“I’m going to build a voice document so you can write content that sounds like me. Ask me one question at a time about how I think, what I believe, what I find annoying, what I care about in my work, and how I talk to my customers. Don’t ask generic questions. Ask me things that would reveal how I’m different from someone in the same industry. Keep going until you’ve asked at least 20 questions. After each answer, ask a follow-up if my answer was vague.”

Answer this honestly. Don’t write how you think you should write. Write like you’re talking to a friend.

If typing feels slow, use a free voice-to-text tool on your phone and dictate your answers. The more natural the input, the better the output.

Step 4: Build the file

Once you’ve done the pattern analysis and the interview, paste this into Claude:

“You now have two inputs: the voice pattern analysis from my writing samples, and my interview answers. Combine them into a single voice document I can give to any AI before asking it to write on my behalf. The document should tell an AI: how I structure sentences, what words I use and avoid, how direct I am, what I believe about my work, how I talk to customers, and what makes my content feel like mine and not like everyone else’s. Keep it concise. This is a reference document, not an essay.”

Save that document somewhere you can find it. A Google Doc works fine.

You can save it as “My Voice File”.

Step 5: Test it on something real

Open a new Claude chat. Paste your voice file at the top. Then give it a real task from your actual week.

Try one of these to start:

• “Write a reply to a customer asking how long the job will take. Keep it under 100 words.”

• “Write a LinkedIn post about a job we just finished. Two paragraphs. No hashtags.”

• “Draft a follow-up to a quote I sent three days ago with no reply.”

Read what comes back. The first version will be close but not perfect. Where it sounds wrong, tell Claude exactly what’s off and ask it to rewrite that part.

Do this two or three times on the same piece of writing. To improve the output, you have to teach it where the gaps in your voice file are.

After 5 to 10 rounds of real use, your file gets sharper. The outputs need less editing.

You realise you’re spending 3 minutes on content that used to take 30.

What this actually changes for your business

For a solopreneur, the struggle is almost always time. You have the skills, clients, things worth saying.

A voice file doesn’t replace your thinking. However, you still decide what to write about. You still check the output and fix what’s wrong.

But you stop starting from nothing every time. Claude gives you a first draft that sounds like you, and editing is always faster than writing.

Practically, this means:

• You post on social media more consistently because writing a caption takes 5 minutes instead of 25.

• Your follow-up emails go out on the same day because drafting them is no longer a task you avoid.

• Your proposals feel personal because they sound like you wrote them

One thing to remember…

The voice file is a starting point. The first version will miss things. Claude or any AI tool will hallucinate and could produce something that doesn’t sound right.

When this happens, don’t delete the output and start over. Tell Claude exactly what’s wrong with it. “This is too formal.” “I’d never use this phrase.” “The second paragraph doesn’t sound like me, try again.”

Each correction makes the next output better. Treat it like training someone new on your team. The first week is the hardest. By week 4 or less, they know how you work.

If you want to share what you build with it, reply and let me know. I’m collecting real examples from people or business owners who’ve done this and seeing what the outputs look like across different industries.

- Tolu

You might not need AI right now.

Not because AI isn’t useful. It is. I’ve seen it save a cleaning company hours every week and help a small business handle more customers without hiring anyone new.

But I’ve also seen business owners spend money on tools they never use. Sign up for subscriptions they don’t understand. Try to automate things that don’t have a process yet. And then conclude that AI doesn’t work.

It worked fine. It just got pointed at the wrong problem.

Here is what I have learned from building AI tools for local businesses over the past six months.

AI is only good at one type of task

Repetitive. Predictable. High volume.

Answering the same customer questions. Sending booking confirmations. Following up after jobs. Drafting quotes from templates. These tasks follow a pattern.

If the task changes every time, requires judgment, involves a difficult human situation, or depends on context the AI doesn’t have: it is not an AI job. It is your job, or your team’s job.

AI cannot handle an upset customer who had a bad experience. It can produce words that sound empathetic, but it cannot read the situation, understand the relationship history, or make the right call about what to say. That takes a human.

AI also makes things up. Confidently. When it doesn’t know the answer, it often invents one that sounds reasonable.

This is called hallucination, and it still happens in 2026 across every major AI model.

The implication for your business: never let AI answer a question it hasn’t been specifically trained to handle for your business.

The question that matters before anything else

What is the specific problem you are trying to solve?

Not “I want to use AI.” Not “my competitor is using it.” What is the actual problem eating your time or costing you customers right now?

If you can name it clearly, AI can probably help. Something like: “I spend 3 hours every week answering the same pricing and availability questions.” That is a clear problem with an AI solution.

If you can’t name it clearly, start there. Walk through your working week. Find the task that repeats, that you do manually, that follows the same pattern every time. That is your starting point.

Start with that one task. Find one tool. Run it on 10 real instances of that task. Measure the difference. Then decide if you want to add a second task.

That is the whole approach. One problem. One tool. Measured result. Then you decide.

When AI is genuinely the wrong move

If your business gets fewer than 10 enquiries a week and you handle them easily, AI won’t change your numbers meaningfully.

If you don’t have a consistent process for the task you want to automate, AI will automate chaos.

If you’re still figuring out your offer, your pricing, or who your customer is, AI cannot solve a problem that hasn’t been defined yet.

In those cases: define the thing first. AI can come later.

When it’s the right move

You get the same questions more than 5 times a week. Customers go elsewhere because your response is too slow. Your team spends hours on tasks that follow a pattern. You want to take on more jobs without taking on more admin.

If any of those are true, there is probably a specific AI tool that solves exactly that problem. And setting it up correctly, trained on your actual business, connected to your existing tools, changes how that part of your week feels.

That’s what I build. And the honest version is: sometimes the answer after a conversation with a business owner is “you don’t need AI yet, here’s what you need first.”

If you want that conversation, reply to this. No pitch. Just an honest answer about where you are and what would actually help.

None of it grew your business. All of it had to get done anyway.

Here’s the part that matters: a solo operator or a 2-person shop can hand a big chunk of that to Claude; and get it back on a Monday morning, done, waiting for a yes or a no.

Not “someday, once we scale.” This week.

Just ONE tool: “Claude for Small Business”

It’s a plugin from Anthropic. Built for small or growing businesses

You don’t prompt it. You talk to it in plain English, like texting an employee who never sleeps and never needs training. Well, I dictate by clicking on the record botton.

• “Will I make payroll this week?”

• “What am I missing this week?”

It reads your QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, DocuSign, Google Workspace, or Microsoft 365. It does the work and shows you the result. But you approve before anything sends, posts, or pays.

Why it matters: in hours, not features

Forget “efficiency.” Talk numbers.

• Solo trader: admin (invoicing, follow-ups, bookkeeping prep) typically eats 8–10 hours a week. Owners running this plugin report getting 4–6 of those hours back, weekly.

• 2-person shop: double the admin, half the time to do it. That’s usually where owners feel it hardest; and where the time saved compounds fastest, because someone finally gets a Friday afternoon back.

• Month-end close: what used to be a lost weekend becomes a same-day task. Claude reconciles against your settlements and writes the P&L narrative for you to check, not build from scratch.

• Invoice chasing: the task everyone avoids because it’s awkward. Claude drafts it, match your brand voice to the customer, so it goes out the same day instead of two weeks late.

That’s a slow morning where you actually plan the business, instead of running it.

Set it up (takes under 5 minutes)

To download the Claude desktop app (Mac or Windows), search for “claude.download” on your browser

1. Confirm you’re on Pro, Max, or Team with Cowork enabled

2. Open Cowork → Customise → Plugins → “+”

3. Search “Small Business” → Install

   

4. Type “get me started”: Claude walks you through connecting your first two tools

5. Connect what you already use: QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, DocuSign, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365

6. Give it a little context about your business: your industry, your customers, how you like things done

What it actually does for you

• “What am I missing this week?” → cash, sales, pipeline, and your top 3 to-dos, on one page

• “Close the month” → reconciled books, plain-English P&L

• “Will I make payroll?” → a 30/60/90-day cash forecast

• “Help me plan a promotion” → a content calendar with drafted posts

• “Review this contract” → red flags before you sign

• “Clean up my CRM” → stale and duplicate contacts flagged for your call

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What this looks like for a business like yours

Hair Salon: Monday brief shows which chairs are empty this week. Claude drafts a same-day promo post to fill them.

Contractors: “Will I make payroll?” pulls outstanding invoices and current cash before you run numbers and not after.

Real Estate CRM clean-up flags leads gone cold in HubSpot. Claude drafts the check-in email. You just hit send.

Cleaning business: Every Friday: “who owes me money?” Reminder emails go out same day, tone-matched per customer.

Restaurant: Month-end close shows your real margin after supplier costs jumped. A content calendar promotes the new seasonal menu, same session.

Guest House / B&B: Cash flow forecast before the slow season hits. You plan for it instead of scrambling through it.

Construction: Subcontractor agreement reviewed for red flags before signature. Job-cost invoices reconciled against what actually cleared the bank.

Home Services: (plumbers, electricians, HVAC) Morning lead triage from HubSpot. You call the hottest lead first, not whoever happened to fill out the form first.

E-commerce / Online Store Weekly snapshot of sales trend and slow movers straight from PayPal or Stripe. Claude flags which SKUs to push and drafts the email or social post to move them, before the stock sits another month.

Your move…

Open Claude Cowork. Install the plugin. Type: “get me started.”

That’s the whole ask.

Questions setting it up? Reply to this email or leave a comment. I’ll walk you through it.

Run AI-powered ad campaigns. Build personalised email funnels. Deploy conversational lead generation at scale.

Fine for a company with a marketing team. Useless for an hair salon in Manchester who wants more jobs and less hassle.

Here’s what actually works for a local or growing business trying to use AI to bring in more customers in 2026.

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1. Get your Google listing to do the selling for you

This is the highest-impact thing you can do right now and it costs nothing.

Google now uses AI to pull answers from your Business Profile when customers search for your trade. When someone types “cleaner near me” or “plumber in Leeds”. Google’s AI reads your profile and decides whether to include you in the answer.

What it looks for: accurate services, real photos, current hours, recent reviews with responses.

Use AI to make this easier. Open ChatGPT and paste in your current Google Business Profile description. Ask it to rewrite it to include your specific services, your area, and a clear reason to call you. It takes 10 minutes. The rewritten version does more work than most businesses’ current descriptions.

Then do the same with your responses to reviews. Paste in the review, ask ChatGPT or Claude or any AI chat app to draft a warm, specific response in your voice. Read it, adjust anything that doesn’t sound like you, post it. 3 minutes per review instead of staring at the screen wondering what to say.

Over 85% of companies now use AI tools in at least one business function. Most local businesses haven’t applied this to their Google listing yet. That’s your window.

2. Follow up with every enquiry, automatically

78% of customers hire the company that responds first. Most local businesses lose jobs not because they’re too expensive or because their work is poor, but because they took too long to reply.

An AI follow-up setup fixes this. When a customer fills in your contact form or sends a message, an automated reply goes out immediately. Not a generic “thanks for your message.” A message that tells them what you do, what you charge roughly, and what happens next.

You set this up once. It runs every time someone enquires.

The tools for this: Zapier connects your contact form to an email or WhatsApp message. You write the template once. AI helps you write a better template than you’d write under pressure at 10pm when the enquiry comes in.

Here’s the prompt to use:

Paste this into ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini:

Write a friendly reply to a customer who has just enquired about [your service]. Tell them we’ve received their message, give them a rough idea of [price or process], and let them know we’ll be in touch within [timeframe]. Keep it under 100 words and friendly but professional.

Read the draft. Adjust it to sound exactly like you. Save it as your template.

That template now replies to every enquiry before your competitor has seen the notification.

3. Use AI to generate more reviews without it feeling awkward

Reviews are the most direct way to get more customers from search in 2026. They influence whether you appear in local results at all, not just whether customers choose you.

The problem most business owners have: asking for reviews feels uncomfortable. You don’t want to seem like you’re begging. You forget to ask when the job is done and you’re packing up.

AI makes this easier in two ways.

First, write your review request text once, properly. Paste this prompt into ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini:

Write a short, friendly text message I can send to a customer right after completing a [your service] job, asking them to leave a Google review. Include a simple explanation of why it helps my small business. Keep it under 60 words.

You get a message you’re happy to send. You save it on your phone. You copy it and personalise the name every time a job is done.

Secondly, set a reminder. This sounds obvious and almost nobody does it. Set a recurring reminder in your phone for the end of each working day: “Send review request to today’s customers.” That’s it. The AI drafted the message. The reminder makes sure you send it.

Businesses with 50 or more Google reviews generate 266% more leads than those with fewer than 10. That gap comes from consistency, not from having a magic script.

The bigger picture

More customers don’t come from using more AI tools. They come from showing up consistently in the places customers are looking, responding faster than competitors, and making it easy for happy customers to tell other people about you.

AI helps you do all three without adding hours to your week.

Pick one of the three things above. Try it this week on one real enquiry or one real job. See what it changes.

If you want help setting up the automated follow-up or the appointment booking for your business, reply to this.

Go for it.

Work with AI

Leave a comment

If you want to know how to automate your customer enquiries, there are 40 YouTube videos for that. ChatGPT can walk you through it in a single prompt.

The “how to” is everywhere now. Anyone can access it.

So why are you still reading this?

I’ve been sitting with that question for a few weeks. And I think the honest answer is this: you’re not here for the instructions. You’re here for what happens after the instructions.

The part that doesn’t get written up

I built an appointment setting agent for a cleaning company this year. On paper, straightforward. Pick the right tools, connect the calendar, train it on the business’s services and areas, test it, deploy it.

What the instructions don’t tell you is that the first version booked a job in an area the company doesn’t cover. The second version sent a confirmation before checking availability. The third version got confused when a customer asked about pricing mid-conversation and defaulted to a generic response that made no sense for their specific service tiers.

None of that is in a tutorial. You find it by doing it on a real business with real customers who have real complaints when something goes wrong.

By the fourth version, it worked. Properly. The company got hours back every week.

But the three broken versions before it? That’s the knowledge that doesn’t live in a YouTube video.

What I’m actually building here

11 months ago I started working with Solverdeck with 2 clients and a clear idea: local businesses and trades in the UK deserve access to the same tools big companies use, at a price that makes sense for a business their size.

What I didn’t know was how different every sector is. A plumber needs something completely different from a cleaning company. A clinic has compliance considerations that a landscaper doesn’t.

I’ve spent the first half of this year learning that. Not from a course. From 12 clients, 10 delivered projects, and a lot of conversations with business owners who trusted me with something that actually matters to them.

That knowledge is what I’m here to share.

Not only the steps. The judgment behind the steps.

Why that matters for you

If you’re a business owner reading this, you’ve probably already tried at least one AI tool. Maybe it did exactly what the tutorial said it would do. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe you couldn’t figure out which part went wrong.

That gap between “the instructions said this would work” and “it’s not working for my actual business” is what I’m here to close.

The tools are not the hard part. Knowing which tools, in which order, designed for the specific way your business runs, and what to do when something breaks, that’s the part that takes real experience.

I’m building that experience one client at a time. And I’m sharing it here so you don’t have to learn it the hard way.

What’s happing in the second half of 2026

I want to be honest about what I’m focused on.

Growing the client base by 60% before December. Taking on more sectors, more use cases, more businesses that are ready to stop doing manually what a tool can handle reliably with little or no human input.

Would also be sharing more of what worked, what didn’t, what I’d do differently.

And being useful to you, specifically, in a way that generic AI content isn’t.

If there’s something in your business you’re stuck on, or something you’ve been trying to automate and it’s not quite working, reply to this. Because those are exactly the problems I’m spending my time solving right now, and the answer might help someone else reading this next week.

You’ve got this!

Tolu

P.S. The cleaning business I built the agent for went from spending 10 hours every week on booking admin to spending 30 mins altogether.

That’s the bit worth talking about.

Well, this page (Work with AI) was created for this

I build AI agents and automation systems for local businesses through my company Solverdeck. I help small businesses set up AI that actually saves them a decent amount of time and cost .

In this newsletter, I share what I learn.

Every week, you get one practical AI lesson. No hype or “10x your productivity” promises.

Just clear, simple ways to use AI in your day-to-day work, life and business.

This newsletter is for you if:

You’ve heard about AI but haven’t really started using it. You think it’s too technical, too expensive, or not for your kind of work.

You want someone to show you what to do, step by step, in plain English.

I write about AI tools you can use today, real examples from businesses I’ve worked with, and honest opinions about what works and what doesn’t.

One email a week. Short enough to read during a tea break.

- Tolu