Dennis Kriel

Prompt engineering for business owners: what a course should teach you

By Dennis Kriel · · 2 min read

"Prompt engineering" sounds technical, but for a business owner it means one thing: getting useful answers from AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude the first time, instead of generic text you rewrite yourself.

Why most prompts give generic answers

AI tools fill gaps with averages. Ask "write a marketing plan" and you get a plan for an average business. The fix is to give the context only you have.

The CRIT framework

The AI Masterclass teaches CRIT, a four-part structure for any request:

  • Context: your business, your customers, your situation, and what you've tried.
  • Role: who the AI should act as, for example a marketing strategist who knows South African SMEs.
  • Interview: ask the AI to put questions to you before it answers, so it fills its own gaps.
  • Task: exactly what you want, in what format and length.

An example CRIT prompt

Context: I run a 12-person accounting practice in Pretoria. Most of our clients are owner-managed businesses with 5 to 50 staff, and almost all our new work comes from referrals. I want more enquiries from LinkedIn.

Role: Act as a marketing strategist who knows South African professional services firms.

Interview: Before you answer, ask me five questions about my clients, my competitors and how much time I can give this each week.

Task: Give me a 90-day LinkedIn plan as a table, with one row per week: the topic, the format of the post and who it is for.

Change the context to your own business and the same structure works for a sales email, a job description or a competitor report.

What a good prompt engineering course covers

  • A framework you can repeat (such as CRIT), not a list of tricks.
  • Practice on your own business: a SWOT analysis, a competitor report, a strategy.
  • Saved prompt templates for jobs you do every week.
  • When to use which tool, and what not to share with AI tools, such as your clients' personal information.

Practising on your own

Pick one weekly task (a client email, a proposal, a social post) and write a CRIT prompt for it. Keep the best version as a template, and improve it each time.

Learning it with Dennis

Module 1 of the AI Masterclass, "AI Foundations and Strategic Thinking", teaches CRIT live with Claude and ChatGPT. You build a SWOT analysis, a competitor report and a business strategy for your own business, and you take home 12 ready-made prompts.

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