The Tuesday after the expo you have forty inquiries. Twelve emails, twenty-some texts, a few DMs, and a stack of cards with notes on the back. Every one of them is a hunter with dates and money, and every day they wait is a day they book with someone else.
Most outfitters answer the first ten well, the next ten late, and the rest never. Not because they don’t care. Because each reply takes fifteen minutes of thinking, and fifteen times forty is ten hours you don’t have in show season.
Here is how to get each one down to five minutes, without sending anything you’d be embarrassed by.
What AI is good at here
It is good at the part that takes you the longest: turning what you know into a clear, friendly email that answers the hunter’s actual question. It is bad at the part that matters most: knowing your prices, your open dates, your rules, and what you’d actually tell this guy. So you give it that, once, and it does the typing.
Step 1. Write your cheat sheet once
Open a note on your phone and write down, in plain words, the things you say over and over. Ten minutes, one time. For example:
- Hunts you run, with the real price for this season and what’s included.
- Dates that are open, dates that are full.
- What you need from a hunter to hold a date: deposit amount, when it’s due, how to pay.
- Your three most common questions and how you answer them (tags, lodging, what to bring).
- How you talk. “We’re a small family outfit, I’ll be your guide” or “We run six guides and a cook.”
Keep this note. It’s the only thing you’ll update.
Step 2. Paste this prompt
Open Claude or ChatGPT. Paste the prompt below, then your cheat sheet, then the inquiry. Hit enter.
You are helping me, a hunting outfitter, reply to an inquiry from a hunter. Below is my cheat sheet with my hunts, prices, open dates, deposit terms and how I talk. Below that is the hunter’s message.
Write a reply from me. Rules:
– Answer the hunter’s actual question first, in the first two sentences.
– Only use prices, dates and terms from my cheat sheet. If the hunter asks about something that isn’t in it, write [CHECK] in that spot instead of guessing.
– Sound like me, not like a brochure. Short sentences. No exclamation points. No “I hope this email finds you well.”
– End with one clear next step: the deposit to hold the date, or the one piece of information I need from him.
– Don’t mention the cheat sheet, and don’t say the reply was written with AI.
– Keep it under 150 words.MY CHEAT SHEET:
(paste it)THE HUNTER’S MESSAGE:
(paste it)
If you want it to sound more like you, paste in two or three replies you’ve already sent and add “write like these.”
Step 3. Check it before you send it
The draft will read well. That’s the danger. Read it once with these questions:
- Is every number right? Price, dates, deposit. It usually won’t invent one if your cheat sheet is clear, but it can, and you’re the one signing it.
- Did it answer what he asked, or what it thought he asked? A hunter asking “do you do archery elk” needs a yes or no before he needs your rates.
- Any [CHECK] left? Fill it in or cut the sentence.
- Would you say this out loud at the truck? If not, change the words.
Then send it from your own email or phone, the way you always do.
What this looks like in practice
Forty inquiries at five minutes each is a little over three hours. Do it in two sittings, Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, and every hunter from the show hears back inside 48 hours. That alone puts you ahead of most of the booths they visited.
The ones who answer your next step, the deposit or the missing detail, are your real leads. Write their names down somewhere you’ll find them in June.
One more thing
Keep the inquiry, the draft and what the hunter said next together. In a notebook, a spreadsheet, whatever you’ll actually open. The hunter who said “maybe next year” at the show is the easiest booking you’ll make next winter, if you can find him.
That’s what Champ is: a CRM for outfitters with the AI built in. Every inquiry lands in one list with where it came from, what he wants and what you said, and the reply above is drafted for you right there, from your own prices and dates. Ask it which leads came from the expo and it tells you who, what they want and what they said. Free while we build it with the first outfitters, and I set each outfit up myself in 15 minutes: https://calendar.app.google/bQtrweEKqhZMFQt47
Brian Knopke builds Champ HQ in St. George, Utah.
Leave a Reply