Claude Skills: Build Your Own AI Employees

This is the beginners's guide to actually setting up Claude Skills. I'm going to make it super easy for you to understand how to use it, why it's important. I'll start by important. Like you will be able to get way more out of Claude if you use skills. It's just going to get way way more consistent, higher value stuff. So, who doesn't want that? This episode is for you. Um, and it's it's for the beginner. I'm not going to be using Claude Code. I'm just going to be using the website or if you want to just have the Mac app, we're going to talk about how you can create a custom skill. >> So, the first thing you're going to want to do is actually enable skills. So, it doesn't enable it by by default. So, if you go to settings and then you click capabilities, if you scroll down, you actually could see that there's this skills preview feature, repeat customizable instructions that Clo can follow in any chat. Um, and you can actually add them over here. If you want to create a new skill, it, you know, gives you three options. It says create with Claude, build complex skills through conversation, write skill instructions, great for skills that are easy to describe. Um, and then upload a skill. So this is if you actually have a zip already or a skill, you can just upload it already. But for the vast majority of people, you actually want to just hit uh you know, let's create a skill together and says it basically onboards you to this idea of how to create a skill. So it says let's create a skill together using your skill creator skill. First ask me what the skill should do. It says I'll help you create a custom skill. Let me first review the skill creator documentation to guide us through this process. So then it says perfect. Let's create a custom skill. What functionality should this skill provide? For example, it could help with working with a specific formats or data, following particular workflows for workflows for your work or projects, integrating with specific tools or APIs, applying domain specific knowledge or pro uh procedures or something else entirely. So what do I have in mind? So, hm, that's a good question. I'm going to say, "Hey there. I run a design agency called LCA. I'm constantly creating new apps and websites. I'd love a skill that reviewed my uh designs actually uh reviewed my viewed my copywriting on my apps and websites and and critiqued it to get the highest conversion rate possible. Basically, I want to ship apps that drive revenue, etc. And copy helps do that. So, basically what I'm trying to do is I want to have almost like a copywriter that specializes for, you know, apps and and websites, and I want to see if I can create a skill that can go and do that. Um, and it says, "Great idea. A conversion focused copyrightiting review skill would be really valuable for your agency. Let me ask you a few questions to understand exactly how you do this. What kind of apps are you and websites are you typically building?" So, I'm going to say, um, I'm typically building mobile apps that have AI embedded in it. um or SAS. Number two, uh how would you provide the copy for review? Would you share URLs, HTML shots, HTML files, screenshots? I'm going to say I would share screenshots or Figma files or just paste text, whatever is easiest for you. So, I literally treat it like, you know, I I'm talking to an employee. What specific elements do you want critiqued? Headlines, CTAs, value propositions, product descriptions, hero sections, pricing pages, onboarding photos, all the above. All of the above. And what does a helpful review look like to you? Do you want specific suggestions with before and after, a scored assessment, prioritize issues to fix, or something else? Actually, that all sounds great. If you have a business that's doing at least $50,000 a month in revenue, I've got something interesting for you. It's called offline mode. It's a 2-day event that me and my team are putting on at a 20,000 plus foot square foot mansion. Yes, this is what it looks like on January 23rd and January 24th in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I'll include a link in the description if you're interested in coming, but it's basically for people who have a business that's kind of cranking, but they really want to put it in rocket ship mode. They want to create a set of businesses that generate tons of money, tons of cash flow, tons of product market fit, tons of impact. Um, but they're not just quite there yet. It's also about, you know, making your business AI first. how you can actually, you know, build not just one product but multiple products. And you're going to leave with, you know, tactical, uh, answers to your questions. So, um, if that's you and this sounds interesting, uh, I'll see you there. So, you answer it. Um, and it's actually a really good like before you create I mean you should create your first skill but I think that you should be asking uh Claude like which you know telling it what you do and giving and asking it to tell you what are the 10 skills that you should be creating. Um, so this would just be one of the skills. So you can see here it says I have a clear picture now. I'm creating a conversion copywriting review skill for your AI and SAS mobile apps. I'll build a skill that reviews all copy elements, headlines, CTAs, value props, provides scored assessments with specific before and after suggestions, prioritizes issues by impact on conversion, works with screenshots, Figma files, and past. Let me start up start by setting up the skill structure. And it's gone and it's like it's it's building out building this out. So, uh, why this is so important is, you know, yes, you could, um, obviously have this within within Claude, um, in like one chat, but you lose the context with the skill. You're getting the consistency uh, and you're just getting better output ultimately because you're getting consistent output that you want, right? You're giving it the right amount of of context and now knows about my business. A common question is, well, why wouldn't I just use a project within Claude? Well, um, you could use a project, but projects are context specific for a specific like, you know, there's a beginning, middle, and an ending date to the project. So for example like maybe you're working on a you know Christmas campaign but after that you know the type of uh copy that you know you you would do for Christmas campaign you know might be might be different you know if you're doing something for Valentine's Day. So, I think, you know, think of skills as like you're building like your team a little bit and you need a set of skills that are going to work regardless if you're working on a campaign or if you're working on just, you know, your it's it's sort of like your daytoday operations. So, let's just check in on what's happening here. Um, it says it's building, you know, it's building the skill. It's starting it's starting by setting up the skill structure. Uh now let me build out the skill with conversion copyrightiting expertise. I'll remove the example files we don't need and create reference materials. Great. And now it let it says now let me uh let me write the main skill MD with the review workflow. So it's uh you know these are markdown files.mmd um which is really simple and I saw I think someone from uh from anthropic actually you know someone asked them uh hey like why did you do markdown files like that's like literally the most basic files ever like why didn't you do something a little a little you know more complex and they just said that like it works right uh files workdown files are super easy to understand. If you're non-technical, obviously you can really understand it. So, I'm happy that they that they, you know, picked such an easy way to actually uh to to get involved. So, um you can see here now it's it's sort of at work. You can you can actually go and see what it's doing. So, you know, it's it's you know, key principles, quality standards. I mean, this is really insane, you know, like that that that this is possible. And um and and and it's gone and and I think it's I think we've got it. So, it says, "Hey, I've created your LCA uh conversion copy review skill. Here's what it includes. Provide expert conversion copywriting reviews for your AI powered mobile apps and SAS. It works with screenshots." Exactly what we said. So, um it says, "What's inside?" Okay, so it's got the markdown file skill.md, which is the step-by-step review workflow with scoring system and output template. It's got a conversion framework.mmd. So it's got the core frameworks like iata. Uh I think that's attention, interest, desire, and action. PA, PAS, BAB, these are different frameworks that I'm happy exist in here. And value proposition formulas like any good copywriter knows those things. Element guidelines on MD. So it's specific best practices for every copy element, headlines, calls to action, pricings, etc. Um, so how it works, when you ask me to review copy, I'll automatically load the conversion frameworks and guidelines, analyze each element with specific scoring, prioritize fixes by conversion impact, critical, high, medium, low, and provide before and a after examples with psychological rationale. And then it says to use this upload this.kill file to code. Then just share any app website and ask for conversion review. So uh we're going to go ahead and do that. I'm actually going to go download it. Um download it here. Copy. I click copy to your skills. So I believe we need to go back to the settings. We're going to go ahead and click settings. And then we're go back to capabilities. And here uh you can see the skills. We have to add the skills. And now is when we upload the skills. So we're going to go ahead and drag and drop that from downloads. Um so actually when I click copy, it put it in there. I wasn't sure about that. Um so you actually, you know, if you click copy, it automatically puts it there, but I've gone and uploaded it uh there again. And let's go and start a new chat and see if this works. So, I mean, we're going to need something for it to review. So, I'm actually just going to go to like, let's say, Calai, which is a popular app for tracking your calories. I'm just going to, you know, screenshot this. Actually, maybe I'll screenshot. Yeah, I'm going to screenshot these App Store previews. I'm going to go back. So, I'm going to say, "Hi, please use the conversion review skill to look at these app store screenshots and provide better copy." Actually, I'm also going to give it the website. I'm literally just going to copy and paste. I've also included the website copy, which needs a copy uh review as well. So, I'm going to go and see if this actually uses the skill. Hopefully, it does. So, it says, "I'll review your app store screenshots and website copy for conversion optimization. Let me start by examining the conversion copywriting best practice for your app." Um, so now you can see the agent really is going and working with the skill to get to give the best possible outcome. Think about if we didn't have the skill. If we didn't have the skill and you were like, "Make it better, you know, make it sound fresh, make it sound clean, make a conversion rate optimized." You just wouldn't, you know, it wouldn't get the best output. So here, let's see what happens. Um, Cali's current copy relies heavily on generic AI messaging without explaining concrete benefits or differentiate for competitors. The app store screenshots use vague headlines and don't communicate the value proposition while the website copy burries chamele compelling features under technical descriptions. Top priorities rewrite headlines to focus on specific outcomes. Clarify the unique AI capability depth sensor for volume calculation and lead with transformation rather than features. So it goes and tells you the critical issues. It says the app store screenshots and let's actually go um and let's look at the app store screenshots. So it says make easy calorie tracking easy with AI. Just snap a picture of your food then let us do the rest. You can see you know it's it's it's taking a picture of pancakes and then it says track your progress as you go. Protein, carbs, and fats. So it says the issues is it's too generic. Every cal calorie tracker claims to be easy. There's no specific benefit or differentiation. Then let us do the rest is nothing meaningful. So then it gives these alternatives. Option one, track calories in 3 seconds. I actually like the 3 seconds. I think that's uh really good. Oh, it did include, by the way, the the score. It's pretty harsh. Three on 10, but um yeah, track calories in 3 seconds. No manual logging. Get exact portions using iPhone depth sensing. Like it's it's it's obviously better. Why it work? Specific time frame 3 seconds. Emphasizes the elimination of friction points. Users hate. Highlights unique tech capability. Includes concrete multiplier. I've written copy for some of the largest SAS businesses apps on the planet. And I could not agree more with this statement. Option two. So it gives you another option where it's transformation focused. Lost 17 lbs without counting a single calorie. Your counter calculates everything instantly. See calories, protein, carbs in real time. Join 5 million users hitting their goals daily. So leading with success. I think that could be really cool, too. Um let's let's let's see how it did on um the website copy. So the current copy says meet Cal AI. Track your calories with just a picture. Um, it has a lot of issues with it. It says it wastes precious headline space. No emotional hook. The recommended alternatives, the only calorie tracker that actually knows portion sizes. Your iPhone depth sensor meas measures exact food volume. So, this I mean, and then it, you know, gives you the high priority improvements. Um, and you can just, you know, see this on screen, but the point here is it's done an incredible job here. It goes into medium priority refinements. It says what's working well here. It gives you product considerations and then a summary of what to do. Now, this this is awesome, but I saw a tweet um from my my friend uh boring marketer uh this morning and he said something that's really smart around how you can get the most out of Claude skills. So he said the trick to creating effective skills to make your AI think like an expert, not just to follow steps. So he had is a 10-step process that I think you know is really great. So we've gone ahead and great. Now anyone listening to this can great can create a claude skill, but how do you actually make the skill 2x better, 3x better, 4x better, 5x better? You do something like this. And if people want I can go and do an episode with with James the boring marketer um where we can actually you know go deeper on this understand what skill what problem step one right so we we did that but could we have gone deeper uh you know with with with the LLM probably explore see where cloud fails without guidance step three research go deep on the domain step four synthesize extract principles from research. Step five, draft. Write initial skill. Step six, self-critique. Review against quality criteria. Step seven, iterate, fix gaps, get feedback, improve. Step eight, test, use skill on a real scenario. Step nine, finalize, codify into uh an optimal structure. What does this mean? It says, you know, make cloud claude think like an expert, not follow steps. Produce output, not intermediate documents. Sounds like a pi pra p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p practitioner, not documentation. Constrain ruthlessly. Every section earns its place. The point here is that once you've created your first skill or your second skill or your third skill, skills aren't something that you aren't, you know, making better over time. So, as you see the output, let's say I didn't like the output of what I got. I can go ahead and edit the skill, you know, now that I have it, I can just go and and edit it and add to it and change it and iterate from there. So, I want to keep this episode short and and it's, you know, cuz today today was just about like how you can create your first few skills and and but once you have that, the second step is iterating on those skills. Uh so that it really really it's like an employee that knows you. you don't even need to like tell it what to do, right? Um that's like what you want to get to that it's just constantly delighting. And that's step two. You're iterating on the skills, getting the most out of them. Um and then step three is using it within a platform like Cloud Code. Um we've we've shown today around, you know, just using it on uh on the web on the Mac app. Um but you could use it within uh the terminal. And that's really where you're going to get the most amount of control in it. So, hope this was helpful. You know, I I do these practical AI tutorials because, you know, I think that uh we have a lot of ideas and, you know, this is this is the startup ideas podcast and it's about how you can get those ideas out of your head and actually create something that people love. Um, and I think a big part of that is having, you know, using things like skills to your advantage. So, hope this was help helpful. Please like, comment, and subscribe. I I literally read every single comment and respond to most. So, um, hope this was helpful. Happy holidays and have a creative day.