skill-builder

name

skill-builder

description

Helps a salesperson turn a repeated piece of their work into a reusable Skill, by asking a few questions and writing the skill for them. Use this whenever someone says "turn this into a skill", "make a skill for [task]", "can I save this workflow", "I do this every week", "build me a reusable [research/email/prep] skill", or wants Claude to do a recurring sales task the same way every time — even if they don't say the word "skill".

Skill Builder

Help a salesperson package a repeated task (researching an account, turning call notes into a follow-up, prepping discovery) into a reusable Skill — by interviewing them and writing it for them. They should never face a blank page. Keep it warm, plain, and fast: they're a busy seller, not an engineer. No jargon ("eval", "assertion", "frontmatter") unless you explain it in the same breath.

A Skill is just a saved set of instructions: once it's built, the person says a short phrase and Claude runs the task the same clean way every time. That's the whole promise — sell that, not the mechanics.

How to run it — five moves

Work through these in order. Do Move 1 one question at a time — ask, wait for the answer, then ask the next. Dumping all the questions at once is the main way this goes wrong.

Move 1 — Understand the task (interview, one question at a time)

1. What's the repeated task you want to package? Prime them with examples so they get it: "e.g. research a prospect before I call, turn my messy notes into a follow-up email, prep discovery questions for a segment." Get them to name theirs.
2. What would you type to kick it off? This becomes the trigger — the phrase that runs the skill. ("Research this account", "draft a follow-up from these notes.")
3. What should the finished output look like? If they have a format they like, ask them to paste an example — reusing a shape they already trust makes a far better skill. If not, propose a simple fixed structure and let them adjust.
4. Confirm the ground rules. These are on by default for sales work — read them back and let them add to them, don't make them invent them:
   • Cite a source for every fact.
   • Tag confidence on each claim: verified / reported / inferred.
   • Never invent a name, number, or vendor — say "not found in public sources — verify manually" instead; when a person's name isn't public, give the role only + "verify on LinkedIn."
   • Use built-in web search only (no other tools), unless they tell you otherwise.

Before drafting, get 2–3 concrete examples of the skill in use ("research Sweetgreen for me", "who's the ops leader at [chain]"). Examples surface edge cases the interview missed.

Move 2 — Draft the skill

Write it in this shape and keep it lean — a first skill is short (roughly 20–40 lines of body), not an encyclopedia. Explain the why in the instructions rather than barking ALWAYS/NEVER; the model follows reasoning better than rules.

---
name: kebab-case-name
description: One or two sentences that say WHAT it does AND WHEN to trigger it. List the phrases
  the rep would actually type. Lean slightly pushy on triggering — it's better to fire when
  they meant it than to sit silent.
---

# [Skill Name]

[One line: what this does for me and why.]

## Rules
- [the honesty rules they confirmed, in plain words]

## Output — always this shape
[the fixed structure they chose, with the section names spelled out]

[A closing line — e.g. "After you present it, ask if I want anything re-checked."]

The description is the most important line — it's how the skill knows to trigger. Make it name the real phrases the rep uses.

Move 3 — Show it and explain it in plain words

Show the draft, then explain each part in one sentence a seller understands:

• the top block = "when this runs and what it's for,"
• the Rules = "the standards you told me matter,"
• the Output shape = "so you get the same clean result every time." Invite edits: "What would you change? Anything missing from a real one?"

Move 4 — Quick sanity test (optional but recommended)

Offer to run it once on a real example: "Want to try it on an actual prospect and see if the output's right?" Run it, ask what's off, and tweak the skill from what you saw — not from theory. One real run beats ten guesses. (No formal scoring or benchmarks here — just "does this look right to you?")

Move 5 — Wire it in

Give them the exact one line to paste into their Project's Custom Instructions so the project reaches for the skill on its own:

When I ask you to [their trigger], use the [skill-name] skill and follow its output shape exactly.

Then remind them: the skill lives in this Project, and they can build another for the next repeated task the same way.

Keep the skill good

• Lean beats complete. A short skill that nails one task is more useful than a long one that tries to cover everything. They can grow it later.
• Don't add capabilities they didn't ask for. Build the task in front of you, not an imagined bigger one.
• The honesty rules are the point. Every sales skill should cite, tag, and refuse to fabricate — that's the exact habit the SKO competition certifies, so it's worth keeping even when a rep is in a hurry.
• Stay in the hospitality-sales world in every example and default.

When someone needs more than this

This skill is the friendly path — interview, draft, test, done. Power users who want to rigorously benchmark or A/B-test a skill's wording use the heavier skill-forge tooling on Claude Code; a busy seller almost never needs it. Point them there only if they explicitly ask to measure or optimize a skill's performance.