Business documents

The concept

Business documents fail for a different reason than creative work. Creative fails from lack of specificity; documents fail from lack of the source material and the decision context. A proposal is not a writing task, it's an argument aimed at a particular person who will make a particular decision on a particular date. A contract review is not a summarisation task, it's a risk-hunting task. A client email is not prose, it's a small piece of relationship management. In every case, the prompt must carry: the real inputs, the real reader, and the real decision.

Three rules specific to documents:

Never let the model invent numbers. State every figure, or tell it explicitly to use [PLACEHOLDER] where it doesn't have one. Left alone, it will produce confident, plausible, and entirely fictional numbers — the single most dangerous failure mode in client-facing work.

Plan before writing (Module 6). For anything over a page, get the outline first.

Bilingual work: write once, adapt — don't translate. A straight Arabic translation of an English proposal reads like a translation, because it is. The professional pattern is: draft in one language, then ask for an adaptation that keeps the argument and re-expresses it natively, with an explicit instruction to change structure where the target language demands it.

Prompt patterns for the four documents you write most

1. Pitch deck

ROLE: strategy director who has pitched to Egyptian FMCG boards.
TASK: outline a 12-slide pitch deck.
CONTEXT: [client, brief verbatim, what we know about the room, who
decides, what they rejected last time, our differentiator].
CONSTRAINTS: no pricing; every claim needs a number or a deliverable;
one idea per slide.
OUTPUT:
Slide N — [headline, max 8 words]
  · 3 bullets, max 12 words each
  · Visual: one line describing what's on screen
  · Say-out-loud: one sentence of what I actually say on this slide
Give me the outline first. I'll approve before you write the content.

That last element — say-out-loud — is the one that turns a deck into a pitch.

2. Contract review (this is where AI earns its keep)

You are a commercial lawyer reviewing this production services
agreement on behalf of the SUPPLIER (us, the agency). We are not
the client.

Do not summarise the contract. Instead:

1. List every clause that creates unlimited, uncapped, or unclear
   liability for us.
2. List every payment term: amounts, triggers, dates, and what
   happens if they pay late. Flag anything where our cost is
   incurred before their payment obligation starts.
3. List IP and usage rights: what we hand over, for how long, in
   what territories, and whether we can use it in our portfolio.
4. List termination and scope-change terms: can they cancel? what
   do we get paid?
5. Give me the 5 clauses I should negotiate, ranked by financial
   exposure, with suggested replacement wording for each.

Quote the exact clause text you're referring to. If something is
absent that should be present, say so explicitly — missing clauses
are as important as bad ones.

You are not giving legal advice; you are preparing my questions for
a lawyer. Mark anything you're unsure of as [VERIFY WITH COUNSEL].

3. Client email — Arabic

اكتب إيميل لعميل بالعربي.

السياق
- المستلم: مدير تسويق، رسمي، بيحب التواريخ الواضحة.
- الموقف: [اكتب الحقائق بالظبط — التواريخ، الأرقام، مين غلطان].
- الهدف: يحس إنه عارف كل حاجة ومسيطر، مش إنه بيتدار.
- ممنوع: أي تنازل تجاري أو خصم.

الأسلوب
- فصحى معاصرة بسيطة، مش متكلّفة.
- أقل من ١٢٠ كلمة.
- الاعتذار جملة واحدة بس، وفي النص مش في الأول.
- ابدأ بالتواريخ الجديدة، مش بالسبب.
- اقفل بخطوة محددة من عندنا بتاريخ.

المخرجات
سطر الموضوع + نص الإيميل. اديني نسختين: واحدة أدفى وواحدة أجف.
ممنوع تخترع أي رقم أو تاريخ مش مكتوب فوق.

4. Bilingual adaptation

Here is the approved English proposal. Produce the Arabic version.

This is an ADAPTATION, not a translation:
- Keep the argument and every number identical.
- Re-express natively in Modern Standard Arabic — restructure
  sentences where Arabic wants a different order.
- Any English phrase that has no natural Arabic equivalent: rewrite
  the idea, don't transliterate the words.
- Keep these terms in English: [product names, legal entity names].
- No "نحن نقدم لكم" constructions. Short sentences.

Then give me a table: | English claim | Arabic rendering | Anything
that shifted in meaning | — so I can check nothing drifted.

Before → After

Write a proposal for a client who wants a video.