If you're a solo business owner who makes every decision on your own, with no one to bounce ideas off, this is for you.
Most decisions in a small business happen quietly, in your own head. You weigh it up, go back and forth, wonder if you've thought it through properly, and then you decide. With no business partner. No senior colleague down the hall. No one who knows your business well enough to ask the right questions.
It's a particular kind of lonely. The kind where you second-guess yourself not because you're bad at it, but because there's no one else in the room.
I used Claude wrong for the first few months. I used it the way most people do: to write things. Emails, captions, proposals. And it was useful. But something changed the day I stopped asking it to write and started asking it to think alongside me.
The question I ask before almost any significant business decision now is this:
“Here’s what I’m considering doing. What am I missing?”
I give it the context. The situation, my thinking so far, what outcome I'm hoping for. And then I ask what I might not have considered.
The first time I tried this properly, I was weighing up whether to change the pricing on one of my offers. I'd thought it through from a few angles. Felt reasonably confident. I typed it all out and asked Claude what I was missing. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much.
In about 30 seconds, it surfaced something I hadn't thought through: how the change would appear to my existing clients, the ones who'd already paid the old price. I hadn't considered that angle. It would have been a problem.
Not because Claude is smarter than me. But because I'd been staring at it for weeks and it hadn't. Sometimes you just need fresh eyes and a fresh perspective.
Since then I've used the same approach for other decisions too. Taking on a new client who felt slightly off (Claude spotted a scope issue I'd been glossing over). Choosing between two launch approaches (it helped me realise what I was actually optimising for, which wasn't what I thought). Even figuring out how to phrase a tricky message I'd rewritten five times.
I use it this way regularly now. Not to replace my thinking, but to pressure-test it. Before I write a sales page. Before I change a pricing structure. Before I commit to anything that feels significant enough to wonder if I've got it right.
The prompt varies depending on the situation, but the shape is always the same:
“Here’s the situation and here’s my thinking so far. What am I not seeing? What could go wrong? What would a smart, fresh pair of eyes notice here?”
You bring the knowledge of your business, the history, the clients, the nuance, the things that matter and the ones that don't. Claude brings the perspective of someone who hasn't been in it for six months. Between you, you catch more than you would alone.
This isn't about writing. It's about having somewhere to think out loud when you're the only one in the room.
Try it this week. One decision you're sitting with. Open a new conversation in Claude, give it the full picture, and ask what you're missing. See what comes back.
If you'd like some prompts to get started, the free Claude Starter Kit has five you can copy and paste straight into Claude. Grab it at wisewomenuseai.com/starter, and let me know what you notice.