Module 2

Your First Conversation

In this module you'll learn the small set of habits that separate people who get amazing results from AI from people who get mush. Then you'll use those habits to build your first tool — a working break-even calculator — before this module ends.

How to talk to an AI: three habits

Talking to Claude isn't like searching Google. It's like briefing a smart new employee who knows a lot about everything but nothing about your business. Three habits make all the difference.

Habit 1: Be specific

Vague requests get vague answers. "Help me with marketing" gets you a generic essay. "Write a two-paragraph follow-up email to a customer who got an estimate three weeks ago and hasn't responded — friendly, no pressure, one clear next step" gets you something you can actually send.

Habit 2: Give context

Claude doesn't know your business until you tell it. One sentence of background changes everything: what you do, who your customers are, what you're trying to accomplish. Compare "write a job ad" with "write a job ad for an experienced service technician at a family-owned HVAC company where weekends off are a real selling point."

Habit 3: Iterate

Here's the habit beginners miss most: the first answer is a first draft, not the final product. You're allowed — expected — to reply with "shorter," "friendlier," "add a section about pricing," or "that's wrong, we don't offer that service." Each reply makes the next version better. People who treat AI like a conversation get results ten times better than people who treat it like a vending machine.

Three worked examples

Here are three real-world prompts using those habits, and what you can expect back. (A prompt is simply the message you type to an AI — that's the whole definition.)

Example 1: A pricing sanity check

I run a residential cleaning business. My crews cost me $38/hour including taxes and insurance, a typical house takes a 2-person crew 2.5 hours, and I charge $220 per clean. Supplies run about $12 per job. Am I pricing this right? Show me the math per job, and tell me what I'd need to charge to hit a 40% gross margin.

What to expect: a clear per-job cost breakdown (labor, supplies), your current margin, and the price that hits your 40% target — with the arithmetic shown so you can check it. Notice how much the numbers in the prompt did: without them, you'd get a generic lecture about pricing strategy.

Example 2: A difficult email

Write an email to a longtime commercial customer telling them our monthly service price is going from $450 to $510 starting next quarter. It's our first increase in three years and it's driven by labor costs. Keep it warm and confident, not apologetic. Under 150 words. Give me two versions: one that mentions the three years, one that doesn't.

What to expect: two ready-to-send drafts in different tones. Then iterate: "Version 1, but soften the opening" gets you a third draft in seconds. Notice the format instruction — asking for two versions, or a word limit, or bullet points, is a normal thing to ask for.

Example 3: Making sense of a document

I'm going to paste the equipment maintenance section from a lease agreement. Explain it to me like I'm not a lawyer: what am I responsible for, what is the landlord responsible for, and is there anything unusual I should push back on before signing?

[paste the section here]

What to expect: a plain-English breakdown of who's responsible for what, plus anything that deviates from typical lease terms. Remember Module 1's rule: this works for standard contracts, but if a document is under NDA, summarize it rather than pasting it. And for anything high-stakes, Claude is a first reading, not a substitute for your attorney.

Exercise 1: Build a break-even calculator

Time to build something. Claude can do more than write text — it can build small, working programs right inside your chat. Anthropic calls these artifacts: interactive things Claude creates in a panel next to the conversation, which you can use immediately.

You're going to build a break-even calculator. Break-even is the most useful number many owners never calculate: how many units (jobs, plates, service calls) you must sell in a month before you stop losing money.

Open a new chat at claude.ai, and paste this prompt exactly — use the Copy button:

Build me an interactive break-even calculator I can use for my small business.

Inputs (as easy-to-use fields):
1. Fixed monthly costs in dollars (rent, insurance, salaries — costs I pay no matter what)
2. Price per unit in dollars (what I charge for one job/product/service)
3. Variable cost per unit in dollars (what one unit costs me in materials and direct labor)

Outputs, updating live as I type:
- Break-even units: how many units I must sell per month to cover my costs
- Break-even revenue: what that is in dollars
- A simple chart showing revenue and total costs as lines, with the break-even point clearly marked

Make it clean and friendly for a non-technical business owner, with brief labels explaining each field. Start with sensible example numbers so I can see it working immediately.

Send it, and watch the panel that opens beside your chat. In under a minute you'll have a working calculator. Type your real numbers into it. That break-even figure on your screen? You may have just learned something true about your business that you didn't know this morning.

Now iterate — like you own it

Because you do. Habit 3 says the first version is a draft. Send these two follow-ups, one at a time, and watch the calculator improve:

Add a fourth input: "Target monthly profit" in dollars. Then also show me how many units I'd need to sell to hit that profit, not just to break even, and mark that point on the chart too.

Below the results, add a short plain-English explanation of what my numbers mean — something like "You need to sell 34 units a month to break even. Every unit after that earns you $52." Write it dynamically from my actual inputs.

Each change takes seconds. Notice what you're doing: describing what you want in plain English, reviewing the result, and asking for changes. That loop — describe, review, refine — is the core skill of this entire course. Everything from here on is that same loop with bigger projects.

Before you move on

If you want extra practice, ask Claude to build a tip-pooling calculator, a job-quote estimator, or anything with inputs and outputs that you currently do on a calculator or a napkin. The prompt pattern is always the same: what it is, what goes in, what comes out, who it's for.

In Module 3, we set up your computer with the professional version of this experience — Claude Code — which can build entire multi-file projects, not just single-panel tools.