Meet Claude: The AI Tool I Actually Use in My Business

Last week I introduced AI and promised to get practical. So let’s start with the tool I use daily in my own business: Claude.

If you’ve heard of ChatGPT, Claude is similar – but with some key differences that make it better for business operations. Let me show you what I mean.

What Claude Actually Is

Claude is an AI assistant built by a company called Anthropic. You type questions or tasks, and it responds with thoughtful, detailed answers.

But here’s what makes it different from other AI tools:

1. It thinks through problems systematically

Ask ChatGPT to write something, and it starts writing immediately. Ask Claude, and it often pauses to think through the structure first. For business documents – SOPs, proposals, training materials – that extra thinking makes a huge difference.

2. It handles long, complex documents

Claude can read and analyze documents up to 200 pages. That means you can upload your entire service agreement, your employee handbook, or a year’s worth of customer feedback – and ask it to find patterns, summarize themes, or draft updates.

3. It remembers context

Within a conversation, Claude remembers everything you’ve discussed. You can build on previous responses, refine ideas, and have an actual back-and-forth that feels like working with a person, not a search engine.

How I Actually Use It

Here are real examples from my business:

Writing this blog post: I didn’t stare at a blank screen. I told Claude my topic, my audience, and the point I wanted to make. It drafted an outline, I refined it, and we went back and forth until it sounded like me.

Creating SOPs: I described a process I do repeatedly (like qualifying a new M&A client), and Claude wrote a step-by-step checklist. I edited it for accuracy, but it took 15 minutes instead of 2 hours.

Analyzing deals: I upload financial statements, describe the business, and ask Claude to identify red flags or opportunities. It spots patterns I might miss when I’m moving fast.

Drafting emails: I describe the situation and recipient, and Claude gives me 2-3 versions to choose from. I pick one, tweak it, and send. Takes 2 minutes instead of 15.

What It Can’t Do (Important)

Claude isn’t magic. It can’t:

• Access your email or files automatically (you have to copy/paste or upload)
• Take actions in your business systems (it can’t send emails or create invoices on its own)
• Replace your judgment (it doesn’t know your business like you do)
• Work without your input (garbage in, garbage out)

Claude is a thinking tool, not an action tool. It helps you draft, analyze, plan, and organize. But YOU still have to execute.

Where This Gets Powerful: Orchestration

Here’s where it gets interesting. Claude alone is useful. But when you connect it to tools like Zapier, you can make it DO things automatically.

For example:

• A customer fills out your contact form
• Zapier captures that info and sends it to Claude
• Claude analyzes the inquiry and drafts a customized response
• The response gets sent back to your email system automatically

That’s orchestration. That’s AI actually working in your business, not just helping you think about your business.

And that’s what we’re covering in the next post.

Getting Started With Claude

You can try Claude for free at claude.ai. There’s a paid version ($20/month) that handles more complex tasks and longer documents, but start with the free version to see if it fits your workflow.

Try this experiment:

1. Think of a repetitive document you write frequently (proposals, estimates, follow-up emails)
2. Describe the situation to Claude and ask it to draft one
3. See how close it gets on the first try
4. Give it feedback and watch it improve

You’re not trying to eliminate your involvement. You’re trying to eliminate the tedious first draft so you can spend your time refining and executing instead of staring at blank screens.

Next post: How to connect Claude to Zapier and actually automate business tasks. The practical stuff starts there.