How to brief AI properly: the 6-part brief every real estate agent should use with Claude

Bad results from AI are almost always a bad brief.

When Claude hands back something bland, generic or just plain wrong, the easy conclusion is that the tool isn't very good. Usually that isn't what happened. It was given a vague job and it did a vague job. It filled every gap you left with the safest, most average guess it could make.

The fix isn't a cleverer tool or a magic phrase. It's a better brief.

Same quick note as always: I call it SI, super intelligence. Most people say AI. When I say SI here I mean tools like Claude, made by Anthropic.

Why the brief matters so much

Think about briefing a new assistant on their first day. If you said "write something about the new listing", you wouldn't be surprised when they came back with the wrong length, the wrong tone and none of the details you cared about. They'd have done their best with what you gave them. Claude is the same.

Everything you don't tell it, it has to guess. And its guesses are built to be safe and middle-of-the-road. That's exactly why so much AI writing sounds the same.

For an agent, this matters every day. Listing copy, appraisal follow-ups, vendor updates, social captions, emails to past clients, notes after an open. Each one has a person reading it, a tone that suits them, and things you'd never want said. If none of that is in the brief, none of it ends up in the result.

The six parts of a good brief

A good brief answers six questions. Leave any of them out and Claude has to guess.

• Who you are. Your role and where you work. A real estate agent in your area writes differently from a generic copywriter, and Claude adjusts when it knows.
• The job. What you actually want made, stated plainly. One job, not three tangled together.
• Who it's for. The reader. A first home buyer, a downsizing vendor and a busy investor all want different things from the same information.
• What good looks like. An example, or a clear description of the standard. This is the part most people skip, and it does the most work.
• What to avoid. The words, claims and habits you don't want. For agents this includes anything you can't back up.
• The format. How you want it handed back. Length, headings, dot points, a ready-to-send email, a table.

None of these are complicated. The difference is that you've written them down instead of hoping Claude reads your mind.

Same job, two briefs

Take one everyday job and brief it two ways.

The lazy brief

Something like: "Write a listing description for a 3 bedroom house."

What comes back is usually what you'd expect. It's the right sort of shape, but it's generic. It reaches for the same tired real estate words everyone has seen a hundred times. It may invent features to fill the space, because you didn't give it any. It doesn't know the suburb, the buyer or the length you need. You end up rewriting most of it, which is the job you were trying to hand over in the first place.

The 6-part brief

Now the same job, briefed properly:

• I'm a real estate agent selling a family home in [suburb].
• The job is a listing description for the online portals, using only the details in the attached property notes.
• It's for young families who want space and are close to their budget limit.
• Good looks like [paste a past description you were happy with], warm, specific and easy to read.
• Avoid clichés, exaggeration and any feature or claim that isn't in the notes.
• Give it to me as a headline plus three short paragraphs, under 200 words.

Same Claude, same job, a completely different result. It writes for a real reader, in the style you've shown it, with the details you gave it and nothing made up. You're editing a draft that's close, not starting again.

The Day 14 prompt

Here's the brief as a fill-in-the-blanks prompt. Keep it somewhere handy and fill in the brackets each time.

I'm [who you are]. The job is [task]. It's for [audience]. Good looks like [example]. Avoid [things]. Give it to me as [format].

Here's what each part does.

"I'm [who you are]" sets the point of view. Claude writes as someone in your role and your market, not as a stranger.

"The job is [task]" gives it one clear thing to do. If you have three jobs, write three briefs.

"It's for [audience]" tells it who will read the result, which shapes the words, the detail and the tone.

"Good looks like [example]" shows it the standard. A real example of your own work is the strongest thing you can give it, because it doesn't have to guess your style.

"Avoid [things]" closes off the habits you don't want. Clichés, overstatement, jargon, anything you can't stand behind.

"Give it to me as [format]" means it comes back in a shape you can use straight away, not one you have to rearrange.

Try it yourself

Pick one job you do every week and give it the full brief.

1. Choose a real job. A listing description, a vendor update, a follow-up email, a social caption. Something you'd normally write yourself.
2. Send the lazy version first. One line, no detail. Save what comes back.
3. Start a new conversation and fill in the six parts. Take your time with "good looks like". Paste in an example of your own that you were happy with.
4. If the job needs your files, add one narrow folder. Only the files for that one job, and copies rather than originals.
5. Add "show me your plan first" to the end of the brief, so Claude tells you how it will approach the job before it starts.
6. Compare the two results side by side. Note what the better brief fixed, and what you'd still change.
7. Tighten the brief and save it. Whatever you had to correct, add to "avoid" or "good looks like" next time. A brief you reuse gets better every time you use it.

Keep the safety habits

A better brief gets you a better result, but it doesn't replace checking. A few habits still apply.

• One narrow folder. If the job needs files, give Claude the folder for that job only, never your whole computer. If it isn't in the folder, Claude isn't reading it.
• Approvals on. Keep approvals on for anything that sends, spends or deletes, so nothing goes out or disappears without your yes.
• Read before it's public. Anything going to a client or onto a portal gets read by you first. Check every fact against your own notes. You're the one responsible for what's said about a property.

Where to go from here

When a result disappoints you, look at the brief before you blame the tool. Ask which of the six parts you left out. Most of the time the answer is right there.

Start with one job this week. Brief it properly, save the brief, and reuse it. Over time you'll build a small set of briefs for the jobs you do most, and the results will be closer to right on the first go.

Missed yesterday? Day 13: One listing, a week of posts

Every prompt from the series is on my free prompts page, with a new one each day as the episodes go up, ready to copy.