When cold email copy keeps coming out generic, the problem is rarely the writing. It is missing context. Whoever writes it, a person or an AI, does not know what you actually sell, who buys it, which objections come up, or what proof you have with a number in it.

The usual fix is to point a tool at your website. That gets you how the business describes itself, which is the floor of the picture. Lost deals, real objections, and how price lands on a call never make it onto a homepage, and those are what write the best emails.

This prompt builds the brief with you: one internal document, one to two pages, that anyone can read once and use for your ICP, your copy, and your follow-ups.

What it does

It works step by step and waits for your answer each time. It asks for what already exists (decks, case studies, call recordings, past campaign copy), reads your website, then asks one batched round of questions only for the gaps. It drafts after that, never before, and folds in your corrections.

At the end you get a plain-text brief with fixed headings: identity, offer, who buys, why they buy, why they don't, proof, language, competitive frame, constraints, and a changelog.

What it catches

• Invented proof. Every claim traces to a source. Anything unknown is marked [TBD], because a made-up proof point ends up in an email to a real person.

• A brief that reads like the website. It is an internal document, so weaknesses, lost deals, and real objections go in.

• Skipping the calls. Recorded sales calls are the best source, and when a call disagrees with the website, the call wins. It pulls objections in the buyer's words, the pains that came up, what closes and what stalls, and how price lands.

• No outbound offer. "A free teardown of your current sequence" is an offer. "Our platform" is not. If there is none, it tells you plainly that a cold email sequence cannot be written yet.

• An empty objections section. Nobody volunteers objections on a first draft, so it asks directly.

• Confidential call detail leaking. Calls are mined for patterns. Names, quotes, and company details stay out of anything that ships.

• Overwriting a shared AI profile. If you load the brief into a sales tool, every field write replaces the old value for the whole team. On one platform, product entries could never be deleted, and creating one twice made two.

How to use it

• Paste it into any chat. Copy the prompt below into ChatGPT, Claude, or any other assistant. If it can browse, it reads your website itself; otherwise it tells you what to paste.

• Add it to a Claude Project. Upload the prompt as a project file. Connect Apollo and it reads your recorded calls itself, and can load the finished brief into Apollo's shared AI context after confirming each write with you. Setup: the Claude setup guide.

The prompt

Copy the whole prompt below, from the first line to the last, and paste it as your first message.

You are helping me write a brief for my business: one internal document that a person or an AI can read once and understand who we are, what we sell, who buys it, why they buy, what proof we have, and how buyers actually talk. Everything downstream gets sharper because it exists. Searches reach the right people, copy says something true, and objections get answered instead of ignored. Without it, targeting and copy are guesses.

Work through the steps below with me one at a time. Ask, wait for my answer, then move on. Do not draft the brief before step 4.

If you can browse the web, read my website yourself. If a call recording or meeting tool is connected, read my calls yourself too. If not, tell me exactly what to paste and I will bring it back.

You advise and I decide. Two rules for the brief are not negotiable, though:

• It is an internal document, not marketing. It records what is true, including weaknesses, lost deals, and real objections. A brief that reads like the website is a failed brief.

• Never invent. Every claim traces to a source: my website, a document I shared, or my own answers. What you do not know gets marked [TBD], never filled with plausible fiction. An invented proof point ends up in an email sent to a real person.

Step 1. Collect what already exists. Before reading anything, ask me for the context you cannot see: pitch decks, case studies, sales call transcripts or recordings, onboarding docs, past campaign copy, positioning notes. People always have more than they think to share, and the brief is only as good as what goes in.

Recorded sales calls are the best source, so ask for them first. A website is how a business describes itself. A call is how its buyers describe their problem, and which objections come up often enough to need an answer. When the two disagree, the call wins. From each call, pull five things: the objections in the buyer's own words, the pain points that actually came up (ranked over the ones marketing lists), what closes and what stalls, the real next step as opposed to the one on the website, and how price actually lands, which almost never matches the pricing page. Calls are confidential: mine them for patterns, and never put names, quotes, or company details into anything that ships or goes to a third party.

Step 2. Read the website. Home, product or services pages, pricing, case studies, and customer pages. Pull out what we sell, the named customers, the claims and numbers we publish, and the exact language we use. The website is the floor of the brief, not the ceiling: it shows how the business presents itself and hides everything else.

Step 3. Interview the gaps. One batched round of questions, only for what steps 1 and 2 did not answer. The high-yield ones:

• What do you actually sell, in one sentence, and roughly what does it cost, or what is the pricing model?

• Who are your three best customers, and what made them great?

• What deals have you lost, and why?

• What objection do you hear most, and what is your honest answer to it?

• What proof do you have with a number in it?

• What would you never say, and what words do your buyers use that outsiders get wrong?

Do not interrogate, and do not skip this because the website seemed to cover it. Websites never contain lost deals or real objections, and those write the best emails.

Step 4. Draft the brief. Follow the structure below. Plain language, short sections, one to two pages. A one-page brief that is all true beats a five-page brief padded with guesses. Mark every gap [TBD].

Step 5. Get my corrections. I read the draft and correct it. The corrections are the most valuable content in the whole process: "we never say automation, we say workflow", "that case study is stale, use this one". Fold every one in and hand back the full brief.

Keeping it alive. When something material changes (a new case study, a new offer, new pricing, a repositioning), update the brief that week and date the change. If copy keeps coming out generic, that is a context problem, not a writing problem, and the fix is here.

If I want the brief loaded into a sales tool's shared AI context. Some tools have a team-wide profile of the business that their own AI reads when it writes outreach. Worth filling, and the brief stays the source of truth: when they disagree, update the tool. What went wrong running this against a real, badly stale profile:

• It is shared and destructive. Every field written replaces the old value for the whole team, and it cannot be undone. Read the whole thing, save a copy, write only what changes, and confirm with me before any write.

• Ask whether it should be a draft or live. Do not default either way.

• Check whether entries can be deleted before planning. On one platform, product entries could be created and edited but never deleted, and creating one twice made two. A stale set was permanent and had to be repurposed in place, so count what exists before mapping our offers onto it.

• The free-text context field matters most. Put the guardrails there: banned self-descriptions, the register to use, prices that must never be invented, forbidden words. A correct value proposition with no guardrails still produces copy that breaks the rules.

• Never fill a field with invented positioning. [TBD] is honest. A made-up value proposition shows up in generated copy sent to real people.

What to hand me at the end: the brief itself, in plain text, with exactly these headings so anyone reading mid-task can jump straight to the section they need.

• Identity. One paragraph: what the business does, for whom, and the outcome it delivers, explained like you would to a smart friend, not like the homepage. Then the website and a one-sentence line on what we sell. This is the section people read when they skip everything else, so make it carry the whole picture.

• Offer. What is sold, concretely. The pricing model and a rough range if shareable. The outbound offer: the specific thing a cold prospect is asked to respond to. The offer is not the product: "a free teardown of your current sequence" is an offer, "our platform" is not. If there is none, mark it [TBD] and tell me plainly that sequences cannot be written without one.

• Who buys. A short paragraph describing the ideal customer as a story, not a filter set. Then the champion (titles, what they feel day to day), the economic buyer (titles, what they sign off on and why), and the end user if different.

• Why they buy. Two to four pains in the buyer's words. The triggers that make it urgent now: funding, hiring, a tool change, a season, a regulation. What "solved" looks like to them.

• Why they don't. Each objection actually heard, with the honest answer, not the deflection. Usually empty on a first draft because nobody volunteers objections, so ask directly. This section writes the best follow-up emails.

• Proof. Only what is real, numbers over adjectives: results with the number and the customer type, customers that can be named, testimonial lines with attribution. No proof means no credibility in the emails, so chase at least one real number.

• Language. What buyers say, what we say, what we never say, and the tone in one line.

• Competitive frame. The alternatives buyers consider, including doing nothing and a spreadsheet, and the honest differentiator in one line.

• Constraints. Compliance rules, geographies to avoid, off-limits claims, and existing customers or partners not to contact.

• Changelog. A dated line for each change and why.

Method adapted from the business brief in Apollo Operator, a free, open-source headless GTM toolkit by Creatop: github.com/creatop-gtm/apollo-operator

Part of the Apollo Operator prompt pack

This is one of 19 free prompts from Apollo Operator, the open-source headless GTM toolkit Creatop builds and runs on its own campaigns. Get the full pack here: the Apollo Operator prompt pack.