Liam Ottley: Write a One-Page Business Context Brief

The Lesson

You ask an AI assistant to write a short description for a repair business. It produces a polished paragraph promising same-day repairs for every device. The actual business repairs bicycles, and turnaround depends on parts. The assistant did not have the business facts it needed, and you have a draft to correct.

On the Liam’s Levers newsletter page, Liam Ottley’s example letter recommends giving AI a short company context page: what you sell, who buys it and the rules the business does not break. His official site identifies his work building AI businesses and sharing what he learns. We can use that small context-writing idea without adopting a promise that it eliminates mistakes.

A useful brief starts with facts you can support. It does not need the company’s entire history. For an ordinary writing task, the reader usually needs to know the service, the customer and the limits of the offer.

For a fictional bicycle repair shop, those facts might be: it repairs bicycles, serves local riders and provides a completion estimate after inspection. It does not promise that every repair will finish the same day. Those statements give a draft something concrete to work from.

Keep a missing fact visible. If opening hours are unknown, the assistant should not supply plausible hours. If prices vary, do not invent a fixed fee. Write down the question that needs an answer before the description can be used.

Distinguish a business fact from a writing preference. Serving local riders is a fact in the fictional example. A warm, plainspoken tone is a preference. Both can help, but a preferred tone cannot justify adding a service the business does not provide.

Give the assistant the brief alongside a precise writing task. Ask it to use the supplied facts, preserve stated limits and identify missing information. Then read the result against the brief. A context page helps you explain the task; it does not replace your check.

You may discover that your own explanation is vague. Does ‘fast service’ mean a confirmed turnaround or simply an intention to respond promptly? Does ‘all bikes’ include work the shop cannot do? Clarify the wording before expecting an assistant to make it precise.

A shared brief also needs a date and a person responsible for correcting it. If services or rules change, old context can produce old answers. Keep the source of each important fact nearby so a reviewer can find the current version.

Use a fictional business for the practice below. For real work, include only information you are authorized to use with the selected tool. A short factual brief is often enough for a first drafting exercise.

Reflection

• Have I stated what the business actually offers?
• Who is the intended customer for this specific task?
• Which limit should remain visible in the draft?
• Which detail is unknown, rather than available for invention?

Practice

Original SelfGrowthVideos exercise: draft from a one-page context brief. This is our practice, not Liam Ottley’s named method or a guarantee about AI output.

1. Use this fictional business: River Wheel repairs bicycles for local riders. It gives a completion estimate after inspecting the bicycle. Same-day completion is not guaranteed. Opening hours and prices have not been supplied.
2. Write three short sections: what we offer, who we serve, and limits the draft must preserve.
3. Add an unknown-information section listing the missing hours and prices. Add today’s date and a fictional review owner.
4. Ask an AI assistant to write a short website introduction using only that brief. Request a separate list of details it needs clarified. Alternatively, write the introduction yourself.
5. Check every service and promise in the result. Remove any claim about repairing other devices or guaranteeing same-day completion.
6. Check whether missing hours or prices became invented facts. Keep them in the questions list until answered.
7. Save the brief and the reviewed paragraph together. Note one instruction that helped and one part of the brief you would clarify.

A usable practice paragraph should describe the bicycle service and keep the inspection-based estimate visible. It should not pretend the missing details were supplied.

Review

At the next check-in, add one fictional change, such as the shop no longer accepting a particular type of repair. Update the brief’s date and rewrite the paragraph.

Check whether the new result preserves the change. If it does not, revise the request or the brief and repeat the check before using the draft.

Go Deeper

• Liam Ottley’s creator profile links to his original writing and selected business examples.
• AI for Business & Agency collects practical business learning.
• Prompt engineering helps make a request’s context and limits clear.
• Sabrina Ramonov: review AI social copy against its source extends the checking practice to public-facing copy.