Last week, we talked about why context is the difference between AI that gives generic advice and AI that actually understands your business.
This week: how to build your context document.
This will take you less than an hour. You won't be writing anything. You'll be talking, and the AI will do the writing for you.
By the end, you'll have a document that transforms how AI works for your agency. Every conversation will start with the AI already knowing your business, your clients, your constraints, and what good output looks like.
How This Works
Open ChatGPT or Gemini and start a new chat. (These tools have excellent dictation. You can click the microphone, speak, and your words will be transcribed as text you can copy. You don't need a paid account for either. If you prefer to use a different AI tool, build the document in ChatGPT or Gemini first, then copy the final result to your preferred tool.)
Important: Complete one section at a time, then stop dictation. Don't try to answer all six sections in one go. If dictation fails partway through, you'll lose everything.
Paste in the prompt below. Then, copy and paste one section at a time, and use the microphone to answer the questions out loud before moving to the next section.
Speak naturally. Don't try to be polished.
Think of this like you're talking to a high-level business consultant you just hired. Answer with the real details, the actual problems, the specific context. Be honest about what works and what doesn't. The more specific you are, the better your context document will be.
The AI's job is to turn your spoken answers into clean, reusable context for your business.
You're not writing the document. You're talking. The AI is writing.
Start by pasting this prompt:
I'm building a business context document for my marketing agency. I'm going to answer questions across 6 sections about my business. After I've answered all the questions, please organize my answers into a clean, structured context document that I can save as custom instructions.
The goal is to create persistent context that helps you understand my business, so every conversation starts with you already knowing who I serve, what I offer, how I operate, and what good output looks like for my agency.
I'll proceed by pasting in the section number and name, followed by the questions I'm going to answer using dictation. Your job is to take my spoken answers and turn them into clear, reusable context.
Here is section 1.Section 1: Business Identity and Positioning
This section tells the AI what kind of marketing agency you are, who you serve, and how you fit into the market. It prevents generic advice and helps the AI frame everything in the right context.
Use this to explain what makes your agency your agency.
Dictation questions to answer out loud:
What kind of marketing agency do we run?
Who are our ideal clients?
Who are we not a good fit for?
What size businesses do we typically work with?
Do we specialize in a niche or vertical, or are we more general?
Do we work direct to clients, white label, or both?
What is the one sentence version of what we do?
Section 2: Core Services and Offers
This section teaches the AI what you actually sell and how your services are packaged. This stops it from suggesting things you don't offer or framing recommendations you can't deliver.
Focus on what you get paid for.
Dictation questions to answer out loud:
What are our core services?
What are our secondary or add-on services?
How are our services typically packaged: retainers, one-time projects, or custom?
Are there services we intentionally don't offer?
What problems do clients usually hire us to solve?
What outcomes do clients care most about when working with us?
Section 3: Operating Model and Constraints
This section explains how work actually gets done inside your agency. This is one of the highest leverage sections because it grounds the AI in reality.
Think about how things really work, not how you wish they worked.
Dictation questions to answer out loud:
How do we manage projects and tasks day to day?
What tools do we rely on to run the business?
How does work flow from intake to completion?
Who is involved in reviews or approvals?
What constraints do we regularly deal with: capacity, timelines, budgets, or client access?
What suggestions from consultants or tools usually don't work for us in practice?
Section 4: Sales, Marketing, and Growth Approach
This section aligns the AI with how you attract clients and how you talk about your value. It dramatically improves sales copy, positioning, and strategic advice.
Focus on how growth actually happens for you.
Dictation questions to answer out loud:
How do we primarily get new clients today?
What marketing channels matter most for us?
How do sales conversations usually start?
What do we emphasize when pitching our services?
What objections come up most often?
What messaging or positioning hasn't worked for us in the past?
How aggressive or conservative are we with growth?
Section 5: Standards, Preferences, and Rules
This section encodes judgment. It turns the AI from helpful into aligned.
Anything you find yourself correcting more than once belongs here.
Dictation questions to answer out loud:
What quality standards do we hold ourselves to?
What do we never promise to clients?
What risks do we avoid?
What tone do we prefer in writing and communication?
What things annoy us when working with vendors or tools?
What tradeoffs are we willing to make, and which ones are non-negotiable?
Section 6: How the AI Should Help
This section tells the AI how you want it to behave when assisting you. It sets expectations and prevents frustration.
This is where you define your ideal AI assistant.
Dictation questions to answer out loud:
What do we most want AI help with in our agency?
Do we want quick drafts or deeper thinking?
Should the AI challenge our assumptions or mostly follow instructions?
Do we want suggestions by default, or only when asked?
How technical should explanations be?
What would make AI genuinely useful to us week to week?
What to Do Next
Once you've answered all the questions, the AI will format your responses into a clean context document.
Copy that document and add it to your AI tool's custom instructions (usually found in settings or preferences). Some AI tools let you organize chats into folders with folder-specific context. If yours does, create a "Business" folder and add your context document there.
From that point forward, every conversation will start with the AI already understanding your business.
Pro tip: When you start a new chat about your business, ask the AI to provide a brief summary of what it understands about your agency. Once it summarizes your business, you can reference that directly. "The problem I'm having is with [specific part the AI just mentioned]." This gives maximum context because the AI is thinking through the lens of your entire business structure, not just the immediate question.
This will dramatically improve what AI can do for your business.