Build a Claude Project as Your Client-Recommendation Workspace

Confidentiality caution: This project's knowledge base is going to sit there for months, so treat it like a shared drive rather than a single chat. Never add a real client's name, a specific dollar figure, or the station's unpublished discount floor. Turn "a car dealership spending in the low four figures a month" into a described range rather than an exact number. If your Claude account is a free consumer account rather than a business plan, also check its data controls. A free plan may use chat content to train future models unless you turn that setting off.

1. Go to claude.ai. Then hover over your account area and click Projects, or go directly to the projects page.
2. Click + New Project in the upper right corner.
3. Name it something you'll recognize fast, such as "Client Recommendations," and add a short description.

What you should see: An empty project workspace with a knowledge panel on one side and a place to start chats on the other. Troubleshooting: If you don't see a Projects option anywhere in the sidebar, your account type may not have it enabled yet. Check your plan settings before assuming it's missing entirely.

Look for Set project instructions on the project's main page and click it. Paste something close to this, adjusted to your own rate card categories:

You help an advertising sales agent turn client needs analysis notes into a written recommendation. For every request:
1. Recommend a medium, format, and schedule based on the notes provided, and explain the reasoning for each choice in plain language a business owner would understand.
2. Organize reach, frequency, daypart, and placement around the client's actual goals, not a generic template.
3. Never invent an audience number, response rate, or dollar figure. Use only the numbers given in the notes, or leave a bracketed placeholder for the rep to fill in.
4. Flag any factual claim in a draft that the client themselves would need to confirm.

Click Save instructions. These rules now apply to every chat you start inside this project.

Find the knowledge panel on the project's main page and click the + button to add files.

1. Upload your rate card category outlines (retail, automotive, medical, home services, whatever categories you carry).
2. Upload two or three anonymized past recommendations as examples of the structure and tone you want.
3. Skip anything that still has a real client name, address, or exact spend attached.

What you should see: Each uploaded file listed in the knowledge panel, with its name and file type. Troubleshooting: If a file feels too large or gets rejected, split it by category instead of uploading one giant combined document.

Start a new chat inside the project (not a chat outside it) and paste in a set of CNA notes with the client already abstracted to a general description.

What you should see: A structured draft that names a medium and format, explains the reasoning, and lays out a proposed schedule, following the shape of your uploaded examples rather than a generic outline.

Verification step: Read the draft against the actual CNA notes line by line and confirm two things: that every number in the draft is one you gave it or a placeholder, never a figure it invented, and that the recommended category matches the outline you uploaded for that type of business. A recommendation that mismatches the category (recommending a retail schedule structure for a medical client, for example) usually means the wrong uploaded file got picked up as context.

Once a new recommendation goes well and you're comfortable with how it reads, add the anonymized version back into the knowledge panel. The project's category coverage improves every month instead of staying frozen at whatever you uploaded on day one.