GINGER ALCHEMY • ALCHEMY AI
Friday Build + Field Notes • Issue 07
Field notes from a talk I gave

Three signups.

Zero leads.

One useful build. One small observation. One thing worth keeping.
Before my AICCO talk, I had the presentation ready. I knew what I wanted to teach. I could explain the work I do and show people what’s possible when AI is set up around an actual business.
Then I realized I had no idea what I was going to hand them afterward.
Say someone came up after the talk and said, “That was really useful.”
What happened next?
Probably a LinkedIn connection. Maybe a good conversation. Then we both went back to our week.
That is not a next step.
It is a good conversation that needs somewhere to go.
So I built a one-page follow-up—not to explain everything I do, but to make the next move obvious.
Here is the honest result: three people joined my email list from the talk. No one has reached out about working together.
The handout fixed a real gap. It did not turn one event into a pipeline.
Both things can be true.
In this email
01 •
Friday Build		Build a one-page follow-up people will actually use
02 •
Noticing		The handout is not the follow-up system
03 •
Keep This		Ask me what you still need to know
01
Friday Build

Build a one-page follow-up people will actually use

My first thought was: I need a flyer.
But “flyer” only describes the format. It says nothing about the job.
The better question was:
If we just met, what would make you want to keep talking?
That changed what I was building.
I did not need a pretty summary of me. I needed a bridge between the problem someone had just recognized and one clear thing they could do next.
You may need the same thing after a talk, referral, discovery call, or networking event. The raw material probably already exists in a presentation, service page, proposal, or the answers you keep giving people out loud.
I am not promising this will generate a pile of leads. Mine didn’t. But it will force you to answer a question most of us avoid until five minutes before the event: What exactly should an interested person do next?
Attach the real material. Then give Claude this:
Build my one-page follow-up
Imagine you are a busy small business owner who just met me at [EVENT, REFERRAL, OR CALL].

Using the [PRESENTATION, SERVICE PAGE, PROPOSAL, OR NOTES] I attached, help me create a useful one-page follow-up. It should make three things clear: the problem I address, what I do about it, and the single best next step if the reader wants to continue the conversation.

Keep the language plain and specific. Do not invent results, services, or claims. Before you draft, ask me up to five questions about the reader, what they are likely trying to solve, and what I want them to do next. Ask the questions one at a time.
Answer the questions before it drafts. Otherwise, Claude will fill the gaps with polished beige nonsense.
Then review the page like someone who met you five minutes ago:
•Can they tell whether this is for them?
•Does it sound like you?
•Is the next step unmistakable?
•Did AI invent or inflate anything?
Fix what needs fixing and put it in front of a real person.
Print it. Attach it to the follow-up email. Put it behind a QR code. Send it to the referral who keeps asking what you do.
Do not spend three weeks designing the world’s most beautiful PDF. You are testing whether it gives an interested person a clear next move. Then you watch what they actually do.
02
What I’m Noticing

The handout is not the follow-up system

This is the part I understand better now.
A handout is an asset. It is not a follow-up system.
Three people from the talk joined my email list. That gives the conversation somewhere to continue. But no one has raised a hand about working together.
That does not mean the handout failed. It means I cannot ask one page to do the work of the talk, the offer, the follow-up, and the timing.
The actual system looks more like this:
Useful conversation → clear next step → continued follow-up → relevant offer
I built the second piece. The newsletter now carries the third. The fourth still has to be specific enough—and timely enough—for the right person to act.
That is a much less exciting answer than “make a PDF and watch the leads roll in.” It is also what happened.
And the hardest part is still choosing one next step.
I could send someone to LinkedIn, the newsletter, The AI Lab, an email address, or a calendar. Put all of that on one page and I have not made anything easier. I have handed them a menu.
Before you ask AI to create yours, finish this sentence:
After someone reads this, I want them to understand ___ and do ___.
If the second blank has four answers, keep deciding.
03
Keep This

“Ask me what you still need to know.”

Add this to more of your prompts:
Add to your prompts
Before you create the first draft, ask me what you still need to know. Ask one question at a time, wait for my answer, and do not fill in the gaps yourself.
Use it when you are working from an old deck, rough call notes, or a service page that no longer sounds quite right.
The questions often show you what you still need to decide before AI makes the indecision look finished.
Do this before Monday
Take the presentation, proposal, or service page you already use and build one follow-up for one real situation coming up soon.
Then hit reply and tell me: what happens right now after someone has a good conversation with you?
I read every one.
— Jamie

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