Module 03 of 06
Getting Started with Claude
What makes Claude different, where it outperforms, and how to write prompts that take advantage of what it does best — including why it's become our go-to for writing work.
What is Claude?
Claude is an AI assistant made by Anthropic. Like ChatGPT, it’s a large language model — trained on vast amounts of text and designed to have helpful, natural conversations. If you’ve used ChatGPT, the experience will feel familiar. But the strengths are noticeably different once you start using both regularly.
Claude was built with a particular focus on following complex instructions carefully, producing nuanced writing, and handling long documents without losing the thread. For small business owners doing a lot of writing work — emails, proposals, web copy, content — those differences matter.
Setting up your account
Go to claude.ai and create a free account. Same as ChatGPT — email and password, no credit card required. The free tier gives you access to Claude with a daily usage limit. Claude Pro ($20/month) removes those limits and gives you access to their most powerful models.
For now, the free account is enough to work through this module.
Try It Now
Open Claude and type this: “I run a [type of business] in [city]. Write a short ‘About Us’ section for my website — 3 paragraphs, warm and professional tone, focused on the value we bring rather than just listing what we do.” Compare the output to what ChatGPT produced for a similar prompt.
Claude vs. ChatGPT — the honest comparison
We use both tools daily. Here’s what we’ve found in practice:
Reach for Claude when: you’re writing something that needs to sound like a human wrote it, you’re working with a long or complex document, or you’ve given very detailed instructions that you actually need it to follow carefully.
Reach for ChatGPT when: you need a quick answer, you’re brainstorming at speed, you need a wide variety of options fast, or you want to use integrations and plugins it has that Claude doesn’t.
Where Claude noticeably outperforms
- Writing that needs to sound natural and not AI-generated — bios, web copy, proposals
- Long-form content — it handles more text in a single conversation without degrading
- Following multi-step or highly specific instructions — it’s more precise
- Summarizing large documents — paste a long PDF and ask for key points
- Tone matching — it picks up on subtle tone cues more consistently
Where ChatGPT has the edge
- Speed and variety — faster at spinning up many options
- Third-party integrations and custom GPTs
- Voice mode (a genuinely useful feature for on-the-go input)
- More consistent access at the free tier
Side-by-Side Test
Give both Claude and ChatGPT this prompt: “Write a 200-word email to a potential client who hasn’t responded in two weeks. Keep it professional, not pushy, and end with a low-pressure ask.” Read both outputs. Pay attention to word choice, flow, and whether it sounds like a real person wrote it. Most people find Claude’s version more natural.
Prompting for Claude specifically
Claude responds well to detailed, conversational prompts. Unlike some tools that get confused by long instructions, Claude processes complexity well — so don’t be afraid to give it more context than you think it needs.
A few things that work particularly well with Claude:
- Tell it who you are — “I’m a landscape contractor in Dayton, Ohio. My clients are homeowners in the $300K–$600K bracket…”
- Tell it what success looks like — “The output should feel like a human wrote it, not an AI. Avoid clichés, don’t start sentences with ‘I’, and don’t use the word ‘delve’.”
- Give it something to react to — paste your old draft and ask it to improve it rather than starting from nothing
- Use Projects — in Claude Pro, you can create a Project that remembers your business context across conversations
Try It Now — Build Your Business Context
Open Claude and type: “I want you to remember a few things about my business so I can use them in future prompts. Here’s my context: [describe your business, customers, services, and tone in a few sentences]. Confirm you have this and tell me what you’d ask me to clarify.” Use Claude’s response to sharpen your business description — you’ll use this in Module 4.