Introducing Strategic AI Growth Prompts

AI can write, but it is even better at growing your business.

Most people treat AI like an overqualified intern. “Write this email.” “Make this deck less ugly.” But AI is trained on everything. So why are you using it for errands instead of finding new ways to increase revenue?

The AI 80/20 rule that you should flip

Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle? It is a way for us humans to notice patterns. Here is how I see people use AI:

• 80% of people write task-oriented prompts

• 20% of people use AI to plan their business growth proactively

It is time to flip those numbers and turn AI into a strategic edge for your business.

Too many prompts are task-oriented

Think about your last few AI prompts. I bet they looked like this:

• Draft a blog or social post

• Clean up an email

• Brainstorm ideas for an event

• Make a presentation less boring

While valuable, those will help you complete a to-do list, not build your business.

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The spinach you don’t see

Consider this: Hours after lunch, you attend meetings, chat with people in the hallway, and lead your weekly team meeting. Then, on a trip to the bathroom, you look into the mirror, smile, and staring back at you is a Texas-size spinach leaf attached to your front tooth. Everyone saw it, and no one told you!

That gut-punch? That “what else am I missing?” moment? That’s what it’s like when your competitors use AI to build their business.

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Only 20% of prompts focus on long-term growth.

If 80% of people use AI to write for them, the 20% are doing something much more powerful: identifying gaps in their business, developing growth plans, and improving connections with their customers.

Since large language models are trained on nearly every part of the internet and fine-tuned to be experts in various fields, it makes sense that you can pair up with a virtual expert to extract value.

Let’s look at a few ways you can use AI growth prompts:

• Build personas based on your customers.

• Create user journeys for those personas to take them from a cold lead to a customer.

• Identify missing content on your website that may be causing lost sales.

• Build a detailed plan to grow your market share.

Those are, as they say, just the tip of the iceberg. AI provides reasoning and research models that can “think” through how to help you market, sell, and grow your business by finding your blind spots or opening new doors to revenue streams.

Don’t just prompt, reason

Before you go any further, turn up AI’s brainpower with Reasoning.

Reasoning will pull insights by “thinking” about the best way to help you improve your business.

Here is how leading AI tools handle it:

ChatGPT (OpenAI): Use any “o” model. o3 is best right now

Claude (Anthropic): Use Extended

Gemini (Google): Use any Pro model

M365 Copilot (Microsoft): Use Analyst agent

To get the real value out of AI, switch from standard prompts to reasoning prompts.

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Got it, Bill. Show me.

Let’s say you’re an upstart interior designer. You’ve got a few clients, but their budgets are tight, and their requests come in at the last minute. You’re working with limited time and money to grow your business. Every day feels like building sandcastles while the tide is coming in. Can AI help you escape this cycle?

Be in the top 20% of growth prompters with these “reasoning” prompts.

I’m using an interior designer as the example here, but these prompts work no matter what business you’re in. Don’t just skim through the prompts. Repurpose them for your business today.

Diagnose your business health: Profit visibility lets you decide what to pursue and drop.

Prompt: Act as a small-business analyst. Here are my last 12 months of revenue by client, service type, and lead source. Identify which activities yield the highest profit per hour and which drain time.