The Claude Prompt I Use to Review My Business Each Month

There are plenty of ways to grow revenue in a freelance business. You could build a product, start mentoring, run a group programme, teach what you know.

But if your business is mostly client work, there are three levers that do most of the lifting:

1. Get more retainer clients.
2. Increase the value of the clients you've already got. Repricing for scope creep, taking on bigger responsibility, changing the scope so you're creating a bigger outcome for them.
3. Add project-based work on top of the retainers.

Knowing those exist doesn't help much on its own, though. The question is which one your business should be pulling right now, and that depends entirely on what your next couple of months actually look like.

So that's what this prompt is for. It isn't a prompt that tells you to make more money. It's a prompt that tells you which lever to pull, and when.

You fix October's income in August

The biggest mistake I see people make is looking at their income in the month they actually need it to be bigger. It gets to the 3rd of October, October looks thin, and now they are trying to fix October.

By that point there is nothing left to pull. A repricing conversation takes a month to have properly. A project takes a month to sell. A new retainer client takes a month to find, onboard and get started.

So I work two months out, and I'd really encourage you to get into the same habit. This is a change in how you think about money, not just a change in when you run a review. You stop asking what next month's income is going to look like, and start asking what you need to be doing right now so that the month after that is a good one.

At the end of August I'm not looking at September. September is already largely decided. I'm looking at October - and September becomes the month I sell, reprice or implement whatever needs to happen for October to be a better month.

And I look three months backwards at the same time, because that's where the evidence is. What each client actually paid. Where the hours actually went. Which work was worth it and which quietly wasn't.

Three months back, two months forward. That's the window.

This one needs your tools connected

I want to be straight with you: this isn't a prompt you can paste into a blank chat and get anything useful from.

It's an analysis of your actual business, so it needs to see your actual business. That means Claude connected to:

• Your calendar - so it can see what's already committed and where the empty weeks are
• Your task manager - so it can see the real deliverables, not the ones you remember
• Your vault or client folders - so it knows what each client pays, what they're on, and what you've done for them

I run this in Cowork with all of those connected. If you've not set your connectors up yet, that's the prerequisite: 10 Admin Tasks I Now Delegate to Claude covers how to switch them on.

Without the connections you'll get generic business advice. With them, you get someone who's actually read your calendar telling you that you've got no client work booked in the third week of October.

The prompt

I want you to do a proper review of my business & tell me where I can earn more.

Look at my calendar, my task manager & my client folders in the vault. Use what's
actually in there, not what I tell you.

LOOK BACK - the last 3 months
- what did each client actually pay me each month?
- roughly how many hours did each one really take, including the invisible ones -
  the messages, the "quick calls", the admin?
- so what did each client actually work out at, per hour?
- what did I spend time on that didn't get paid for at all?

LOOK FORWARD - the next 2 months
- what's already committed in each month? Deliverables, calls, deadlines.
- where am I going to be overloaded?
- where are the genuine gaps - the weeks with capacity in them?
- what's my forecast income for each of those two months, based on what's
  actually booked?

THEN TELL ME WHERE THE MONEY IS

There are only three ways I can grow revenue:
1. MORE CLIENTS - take on another retainer
2. MORE VALUE - reprice or rescope a client I've already got
3. PROJECTS - sell project work alongside the retainers

Based on what you can actually see, tell me which ONE to focus on for the month
after next, & why. Be specific:

- If it's MORE VALUE - name the client, tell me what they're paying versus what
  the work is actually worth, & flag anyone I've been working with long enough
  that a review is overdue
- If it's PROJECTS - tell me which of the things I already know how to do I
  should be selling, & who I'd sell it to
- If it's MORE CLIENTS - tell me exactly how many hours a month I've genuinely
  got spare, so I know what size of client I can take

Then give me:
- what I need to do NEXT month for the money to land the month after
- one thing to stop doing, because it's costing me more than it pays
- my realistic income ceiling for that month if I do all of it

Rules:
- Use real numbers from my actual data. If you don't have something, say so
  rather than estimating
- Don't tell me to work more hours. I want more money from the hours I've got
- If my forecast doesn't reach my target even after all of this, say so plainly

What comes back

The useful version reads something like:

September is heavily booked - three delivery deadlines in the second week and very little room. October is much lighter, with roughly two clear weeks in the second half.

Client A has paid £500 a month since May. Across those four months you've averaged around 19 hours a month on them, which is roughly £26 an hour - your lowest by a distance. You've also been running their onboarding since June, which wasn't in the original scope.

Forecast: September around £X, October around £Y based on what's committed.

For October, focus on MORE VALUE. Client A is overdue a review and the scope has moved significantly. Have that conversation in September.

That's a different thing to "you should raise your prices." That's which client, why, what evidence, and when to have the conversation.

What to do with each answer

If it says more value - that's the fastest money in your business, because there's no selling, no onboarding and no new relationship. It's one uncomfortable conversation with someone who already trusts you. Have it in the sell month, not the month you need it.

If it says projects - pick one thing you already know how to do, and offer it to a client you've already got. I've written up how I choose those here: How I Boost My Income Without More Retainer Clients.

If it says more clients - it should have told you how many hours you genuinely have spare. Believe that number rather than the optimistic one in your head, and look for a client that size.

Do it at the same time every month

The reason this works isn't the prompt. It's the rhythm.

Once a month, at the end of the month, you sit down for twenty minutes and look at what's actually happening rather than how it feels. Which client is quietly costing you money. Where the empty weeks are. What you'd need to sell now for next month to be different.

It's the thing that stops October arriving as a surprise.

Start with the last three months. Even if you do nothing else, run the backwards half and look at what each client actually works out at per hour with the invisible hours included. Most people have never done that sum, and it changes what you do next.

If you haven't got your AI brain set up yet, that's the foundation: start here.

And if what you want is the whole system - the pricing, the offers and the capacity to make £5K and £10K months work without turning into an exhausted agency owner - that's what I teach.

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