The 200-Line Truth: Why Your AI Prompts Are Failing

I've been building with AI for the past year at telli, and I've noticed something fascinating: the gap between amateur and professional AI usage isn't about the model—it's about the prompt.

The Amateur Approach

Here's what most people do:

"Write me a sales email for our new product"

They hit enter, get a generic response, maybe tweak it once or twice, and move on. Then they complain that "AI isn't that useful" or "it sounds too robotic."

The Professional Reality

Want to know what real system prompts look like in production? Over 200 lines. Not kidding.

When you interact with sophisticated AI products—your favorite AI writing tool, coding assistant, or customer service bot—you're not talking to a raw model. You're interfacing with a model that has been given extensive instructions you never see.

These system prompts include:

• Detailed role definitions - Who the AI should act as
• Behavioral guidelines - Tone, style, what to avoid
• Context about the domain - Industry knowledge, company values
• Output formatting rules - Structure, length, specific requirements
• Edge case handling - What to do when things get weird
• Quality standards - What "good" looks like for this use case

Why This Matters for You

Here's the uncomfortable truth: if you're writing 2-3 sentence prompts, you're getting 2-3 sentence quality thinking.

AI models are incredible pattern matchers and reasoning engines, but they need context to deliver value. The more context you provide, the better your results.

What to Do Instead

1. Build prompt templates - For recurring tasks, create detailed prompts you can reuse
2. Layer your context - Start with role, add constraints, specify format, provide examples
3. Iterate deliberately - Don't just tweak words; test different structural approaches
4. Study the pros - Look at prompt engineering courses, not for theory, but for real examples

A Real Example

Instead of:

"Write a cold outreach email"

Try:

You are a senior sales development rep at a B2B SaaS company selling
AI-powered sales automation tools to Series A-C startups.

CONTEXT:
- Prospect: Head of Sales at a 50-person Series B company
- Their pain point: Manual data entry eating 10+ hours/week per rep
- Our solution: Automated data capture that reduces entry time by 80%
- Email goal: Book a 15-min demo call

CONSTRAINTS:
- Tone: Professional but conversational, not salesy
- Length: Under 100 words
- Must include a specific value prop backed by our customer data
- No buzzwords like "revolutionize" or "game-changing"
- Must end with a low-friction CTA

WRITING STYLE:
- Write like you're emailing a peer, not pitching a stranger
- Use short sentences. Vary length for rhythm.
- One clear idea per paragraph.
- No fluff. Every sentence should advance the goal.

Now write the email.

See the difference? That's still under 20 lines. Imagine what 200 looks like.

The Takeaway

Stop treating AI like a search engine. Treat it like a highly capable intern who needs clear direction.

The quality of your output is directly proportional to the quality of your input. If you want professional-grade results, you need to provide professional-grade instructions.

This week's challenge: Pick one repetitive task you do with AI. Write out a detailed prompt template for it. I promise you'll see the difference.

Until next Sunday, William

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P.S. — If you're curious about how we built AI-powered sales engines at telli that scaled ARR from $150k to $800k in four months, a lot of it came down to obsessively detailed prompts. Happy to chat about this—book a call through my site.