The short version: good ChatGPT prompts are specific about the output, the audience and the format, not clever or long. Below are prompts I have typed into ChatGPT this month for my own business, sorted by what they’re for, plus a five-part formula so you can stop copying lists and start writing your own.
Why most “100 ChatGPT prompts” lists don’t work for you
I have downloaded dozens of these lists over the past two years. Free ones from newsletters, paid ones from courses charging £47 for a PDF. Here’s the uncomfortable bit nobody selling you a prompt pack wants to say out loud: a prompt written for a generic “small business owner” will always produce generic output, because it has no idea who you are, what you sell, or what your customers complain about. The prompt isn’t the magic. The context you feed it is.
I found this out the hard way rebuilding my own business after a rough five years. I bought a “viral LinkedIn prompts” bundle in 2024, ran ten of them, and got ten posts that sounded like every other consultant on LinkedIn. Confident, vague, forgettable. The posts that got me actual client enquiries came from prompts I rewrote myself, stuffed with my own numbers, my own client stories, my own opinions. So use the examples below as starting templates, not final scripts. Change every bracket.
Business and strategy prompts
These are the ones I reach for most as a consultant. They are built to make ChatGPT think like an analyst, not a cheerleader.
- “I run a [type of business] with [number] customers and average revenue of £[X] a month. My biggest problem right now is [problem]. Give me five specific actions I could take this month, ranked by effort versus likely impact, and explain your reasoning for each.”
- “Act as a sceptical business advisor reviewing my plan. Here is my plan: [paste plan]. Tell me the three weakest assumptions in it and what evidence would prove me wrong.”
- “Write a one-page competitor comparison for [my business] against [competitor 1] and [competitor 2], focused on price, delivery speed, and one thing customers complain about with each.”
- “I have £2,000 to spend on marketing this quarter. List three ways I could spend it, with a rough cost per lead estimate for each, based on typical results for a [industry] business.”
Note what these have in common: real numbers, a role for ChatGPT to play, and a request for reasoning rather than just an answer. That last part matters more than people think. Asking “why” forces the model to show its working, which makes it much easier for you to spot when it’s guessing.
Copywriting and content prompts
This is where I spend most of my working week, and where the wrong prompt costs you the most time. If you want a deeper set built specifically for sales pages, emails and ads, I have gone through what ChatGPT prompts work best for copywriting in a lot more detail elsewhere on this site. For now, here are the ones I use weekly.
- “Write a LinkedIn post about [topic], 150 words maximum, first line under 8 words, no hashtags, tone: direct and a bit blunt, written as if I’m talking to one specific frustrated small business owner.”
- “Here is a paragraph I wrote: [paste]. Rewrite it three ways: one shorter and punchier, one warmer and more personal, one more formal for a corporate audience.”
- “Turn this transcript of me talking into a 400 word blog post: [paste transcript]. Keep my exact phrases and opinions, don’t smooth them out, just organise them into paragraphs with subheadings.”
- “Write five subject lines for an email announcing [offer]. Make three of them curiosity based and two of them plain and clear about the benefit.”
One honest note here: if you’re using ChatGPT to draft content and then worrying whether it will read as AI generated, that’s the wrong problem to solve with a prompt trick. I’ve tested this, and you can read what happened when I tried to use ChatGPT prompts to avoid AI detection tools. Short version: rewriting a prompt to dodge a detector is a losing game. Editing the output in your own voice, with your own examples, is what fixes it, and it also just makes the writing better.
Research and thinking prompts
I use these more than anything else, and they get talked about less than they should. Most people treat ChatGPT as a writer. I treat it as a thinking partner first.
- “Explain [topic] to me as if I already know the basics but need the nuance. What do most explanations of this get wrong or oversimplify?”
- “I need to make a decision between [option A] and [option B]. Ask me five questions that would help you give better advice before you answer.”
- “Summarise this article in three bullet points, then tell me what the author left out that a critical reader would want to know: [paste article].”
- “I disagree with the common view that [popular opinion]. Steelman the opposite argument to mine as strongly as you can.”
That second one, asking ChatGPT to question you before it answers, changed how I use the tool. Most people give one instruction and accept the first response. Adding “ask me questions first” turns a one shot answer into something closer to an actual conversation, and the output improves noticeably.
Coding prompts (for non-developers and developers)
I am not a developer, but I’ve built small tools and fixed website bugs using ChatGPT prompts I would never have attempted alone five years ago. The trick is being painfully specific about what already exists.
- “Here is a Python script that does [X]: [paste code]. It’s throwing this error: [paste error]. Explain what’s causing it in plain English before you give me the fix.”
- “Write a WordPress function that does [specific task]. Assume I’m using the Twenty Twenty-Four theme and comment every line so I understand what it does.”
- “Review this code for security issues only, don’t rewrite the whole thing, just flag anything risky: [paste code].”
If you’re using ChatGPT alongside an actual codebase rather than one off scripts, the rules change quite a bit, mostly around how much context you paste in and when to stop trusting the output blindly. I’ve written a full walkthrough on how to use ChatGPT prompts to speed up coding work without wrecking your codebase, which is worth reading before you let it near anything live.
Image generation prompts
ChatGPT’s image tool has got noticeably better, but most people’s prompts are still too vague, one line like “professional headshot of a woman” and then confusion when it looks nothing like them. Specificity is everything here.
- “Create a portrait style image: woman in her 50s, natural light, plain grey background, warm expression, no smiling with teeth, business casual navy top, shot as if from a 50mm lens at eye level.”
- “Generate a simple flat illustration for a blog header about time management, using a muted colour palette of navy, cream and rust, no text in the image.”
- “Take this brand description [paste] and create three mood board style images showing the tone I’m going for, without any logos or text.”
If portraits and headshots are what you’re after, I’ve put together a much more detailed guide on how to write portrait style prompts for ChatGPT image generation, including the specific camera and lighting language that stops results looking plastic.
Personal productivity prompts
These are the ones nobody puts on the “business prompts” lists, and they’re some of the most useful ones I use.
- “Here’s my to-do list for today: [paste]. Tell me which three items matter and which are just busywork I’m using to avoid the hard ones.”
- “I have a difficult conversation coming up with [describe situation, no names needed]. Help me plan what to say, and push back if my plan sounds defensive or unclear.”
- “Take these messy notes from a meeting and turn them into three clear action points with owners and rough deadlines: [paste notes].”
I also keep a running document of every prompt that’s worked well for me, tagged by category, so I’m not reinventing them each time. If you want to do the same thing more formally, there’s a straightforward process for how to compile a book of your favourite ChatGPT prompts so you build your own private library instead of relying on someone else’s list forever.
The five-part formula for writing your own prompts
Once you understand the pattern, you stop needing lists at all. Every prompt above follows roughly the same structure:
- Role: tell it what to act as (advisor, editor, sceptical reviewer, developer).
- Context: the real, specific facts (your numbers, your industry, your actual problem).
- Task: the exact thing you want it to produce.
- Format: length, tone, structure (bullet points, word count, no hashtags).
- Constraint or challenge: ask it to explain reasoning, question you first, or flag weaknesses.
Miss the context and format steps and you’ll get a generic, forgettable answer every time, no matter how good the underlying idea is. I test this constantly with clients, and it holds up every single time: the same task, given with real numbers and a clear format, produces output that is at least twice as usable as the vague version, in one attempt instead of five rounds of “make it better.”
Try my free prompt builder before you post.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the single most useful ChatGPT prompt for beginners?
Start with something like “Act as [role], here is my situation [context], help me with [specific task], format it as [length/structure].” That structure alone fixes most of the vague, generic answers beginners complain about, and it works across writing, business and research prompts equally well.
Do longer prompts work better than short ones?
No, specific prompts work better, and specific ones tend to be a bit longer simply because they include real detail. A three word prompt like “write me content” will always underperform a two sentence prompt with your actual numbers and audience in it, regardless of length for its own sake.
Can I reuse the same prompt every time?
You can reuse the structure, but you need to change the context and constraints each time, since your situation, audience or numbers have moved on. Saving good prompts as templates and swapping in fresh detail is far more useful than treating any single prompt as a permanent script.
Why does ChatGPT sometimes ignore part of my prompt?
Usually because the instruction is buried in a long paragraph or contradicts an earlier line. Put your format and constraints as separate short sentences or bullet points at the end of the prompt, and it follows them far more reliably.
