The Prompt I Run Before Every Client Call

I run a busy business, and the worst part of a client call was never the call. It was the ten minutes before it.

I'd be finishing something else, look at the clock, and realise I had a call in eight minutes with a client I hadn't thought about for a fortnight. So I'd open the email thread. Then the notes from last time. Then ClickUp to see what I'd promised. Then the proposal, because I couldn't remember what was in scope. Six tabs, no picture, and I'd join the call slightly flustered and hoping they'd talk first.

Now I type one line, and by the time the call starts I know exactly where we are.

What I get back

A one-page brief. Same shape every time, so I can read it in two minutes:

CALL BRIEF - [Client name]
Call: [today, 2:00pm] · Last call: [date, 16 days ago]

WHO THEY ARE
[One line: what the business is, what we're doing for them, what stage the
project's at.]

WHAT WE COVERED LAST TIME
[Three or four lines from the last meeting notes: what was discussed, what
was decided, what they were worried about.]

WHAT I SAID I'D DO
- [Action] - done, [date]
- [Action] - done, [date]
- [Action] - OUTSTANDING
- [Action] - OUTSTANDING, waiting on them for [thing]

WHAT'S COMING UP
- [Their next milestone / deadline / launch]
- [Any task in ClickUp due in the next two weeks]

WHAT TO RAISE
- [Anything overdue, anything they owe me, anything I need a decision on]

That last section is the one that changed how my calls go. I'm not walking in to find out where we are. I'm walking in with the two things I need from them already written down.

Two ways to get it

There are two versions of this in my business. One is a prompt I type. The other is an employee that does it without being asked. Start with the prompt.

The prompt, for any call

Open Claude with your AI brain connected and type this:

I've got a call with [CLIENT NAME] at [TIME] today. Prepare my call brief.

Read their client folder in my AI brain, their last meeting notes, and
their list in ClickUp. Then give me one page, in this order:

- Who they are and what we're doing for them, in one line
- What we covered last time, in three or four lines
- Every action from the last call, and whether it's been done - check
  ClickUp, don't assume
- What's coming up for them in the next two weeks
- What I should raise on this call: anything overdue, anything they owe
  me, anything I need a decision on

Don't invent anything. If something isn't in my files, say "not in the
notes" rather than guessing. Keep it to one page.

"Check ClickUp, don't assume" is the line that matters. Without it, Claude reads the last meeting notes and tells you what you said you'd do. With it, it goes and looks at whether you actually did.

Ten minutes before the call is enough. It takes about thirty seconds to come back.

The employee, for scheduled calls

The prompt is great when a call lands on you. But most client calls are in the diary, and I don't want to remember to run a prompt before each one. So the scheduled ones are handled by an employee.

Every morning it reads my calendar. For every client call it finds, it does exactly what the prompt above does, and drops the finished brief into ClickUp as a task two hours before the call. I open ClickUp, the brief's there, I read it, I join.

It's a routine, which is a skill on a timer. If you've read how I build routines, this is a brief-type routine with the calendar as the trigger. Here's the one to hand Claude:

Set this up as a routine that runs every morning at 6:30.

You are my Call Prep employee. Every run:
1. Read my calendar for today. Find every event that is a call with a
   client. Match the client to their folder in my AI brain and their list
   in ClickUp.
2. For each one, prepare a call brief: who they are and what we're doing
   for them; what we covered on the last call; every action from that
   call and whether it's been done in ClickUp; what's coming up for them
   in the next two weeks; and what I should raise - overdue items, things
   they owe me, decisions I need.
3. Create a task in ClickUp on that client's list called "CALL BRIEF -
   [client] - [time]", with the brief in the description, due two hours
   before the call.
4. If there are no client calls today, do nothing and say "no calls".

Rules: never invent anything - if it isn't in my files, write "not in
the notes". Read-only on everything except creating the brief task.
Never touch any other task.

Claude sets the routine up and tells you when it'll first run. Put a test call in tomorrow's calendar and check the task appears.

The catch, and the fix

All of this only works if your files are true.

If the last meeting notes aren't in the client folder, the brief says "not in the notes". If the actions were done but never ticked off in ClickUp, the brief says they're outstanding. The prompt can only read what's there.

I don't keep those files up to date by hand. I have another employee for that. Every night it reads everything that happened that day and writes it into the right client's log and status page, so the next morning the brief is reading last night's truth and not my memory of it. That one gets its own post: the AI employee that updates my AI brain every night.

If you haven't got an AI brain at all yet, that's where to start: The Co-Founder Setup. The client folder structure in there is what the prompt reads.

Run it before your next call

Don't build the employee first. Run the prompt before your next client call, ten minutes out, and see what comes back. If it says "not in the notes" three times, you've just found out which files you need to fix, and that's worth knowing on its own.

Then, once the prompt's giving you a brief you'd trust, hand it to a routine and stop thinking about it.

And if what you want is the whole system - the pricing, the positioning, and the tech and AI that lets you run a business on three days a week - that's what I teach.

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