10 Claude Prompts to Run Your Operations (Copy and Paste)

If every question in your business runs through you, you don’t own a business. You own a job with extra steps. These ten prompts pull your processes out of your head and onto paper, where someone else can run them.

New to prompting? Start with the 5-part formula in post one. Then run these inside a Claude Project loaded with your company brief, so you never retype the backstory.

1. Turn a brain dump into an SOP

Talk through the task into a voice memo or type messy notes. Claude does the cleanup.

Here are my rough notes on how we [task]: [paste notes or a voice memo transcript].
Turn this into a standard operating procedure a new employee could follow on day one. Include the purpose, when it happens, who owns it, tools needed, numbered steps, common mistakes and how to avoid them, and what "done right" looks like. Flag any step where my notes are unclear or missing something, and ask me about those at the end.

2. Turn meeting notes into action items

Most meetings end with everyone nodding and nobody owning anything. Fix that in two minutes.

Here's the transcript or my notes from today's [meeting name]: [paste].
Give me: 1) the decisions we made, 2) every action item as a table with owner, task and due date, 3) open questions nobody answered. If an action item has no clear owner or date, mark it UNASSIGNED so I can fix it. Then draft a short recap email I can send to the attendees.

3. Find the bottleneck in a process

You can feel where things jam. Claude helps you prove it and fix it.

Here's how [process, e.g., new customer onboarding] works today, step by step, with who does each step and how long it takes: [paste].
Act as an operations consultant. Find the bottlenecks, the handoffs where things get dropped, and the steps that could be automated, combined or cut. Rank your recommendations by impact and effort, and estimate the hours each would save per week. Ask me for any numbers you need.

4. Build a weekly scorecard

You shouldn’t need ten reports to know if this week went well.

I run [business]. Help me build a weekly scorecard of 8 to 12 numbers that tell me whether the business is healthy. For each number, give me what it measures, why it matters, where I'd pull it from, who should own it, and a warning level that should trigger a conversation. Group them under sales, operations, customers and cash.

5. Compare vendors before you sign

The fine print is where the expensive surprises live.

I'm choosing between these vendors for [service]: [paste each quote, proposal or contract].
Build a comparison table covering total price (setup, monthly cost, contract length and cancellation terms), what's included, what's missing, support, and red flags in the fine print. Tell me which you'd pick for a business like mine and why. Then list the 5 questions I should ask each vendor before signing.

6. Write a policy people will actually read

If your policy needs a lawyer to decode it, your team will ignore it.

Write a [policy, e.g., time off / phone use / remote work] policy for my [number]-person team. Here are our rules in plain words: [paste].
Keep it under one page in plain language, with a short "why we do this" at the top. End with a FAQ answering the 5 questions employees will ask first. Flag anything an employment attorney in [state] should review.

7. Plan a project backward from the deadline

Big projects slip in week two, not week ten. Plan backward so you see it coming.

I need to [project, e.g., open a second location / launch a new service] by [date]. Here's what I'm working with: [budget, team, constraints].
Work backward from the deadline and give me a plan with phases, milestones, tasks, owners and dependencies. Call out the 3 things most likely to make us miss the date and what I should do this week to prevent each one.

8. Tell customers bad news the right way

Price increases, delays and policy changes go better when you say them straight.

I need to tell our customers about [a price increase / a delay / a policy change]. The facts: [paste details].
Write a short email and a text message version. Be honest and direct, own what's ours, explain what it means for them and what they should do next. No corporate spin. Then list the 3 replies we're most likely to get and draft a response to each.

9. Delegate the task you keep doing yourself

You know the one. You’ve done it every week for three years because “it’s faster if I do it.”

Here's a task I keep doing myself: [describe it]. I do it [how often] and it takes me [time].
Help me hand it off. Write 1) a handoff brief for the person taking it over, 2) a checklist they can follow, 3) the quality bar so they know what good looks like, and 4) a two-week check-in plan so I can let go without things slipping.

10. Plan your week from your inbox and calendar

If you’ve connected Gmail and Google Calendar to Claude, it can read both and do this for you directly.

Look at my calendar for next week and my unread email from the last 3 days. Tell me which meetings I could cancel, shorten or delegate, which emails need my reply today, which ones someone on my team should handle, and where I can block 2 hours of focused time. Draft replies to the 3 most urgent emails, but don't send anything.

Start with one

Don’t try all ten this week. Pick the process that eats the most of your time, write its SOP with prompt one, and hand it off with prompt nine. Do one a week and in three months the business runs without you in every loop.

Next in the series: 10 Claude Prompts for Marketing and Sales That Win Customers.

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“Let all things be done decently and in order.” (1 Corinthians 14:40, KJV)